Antique Bottle & Glass Collector

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Coming next issue or down the road: A Creepy Clown, Concerned Parents and Voices in the Dark•The Three Blue Bitters•The Saltsburg Glass Works•ACL #12 Small Town USA•Privy Digger’s Dream•What Do You Collect?•Another Adventure of the Bottle Thief: Dead Chickens & Barking Dog•A Clinton Physician Dr. Carl Gruber•M. A. Rue of Cranbury, New Jersey•Early Pittsburgh Glasshouses•Keystone Coffee Jar•Soda City’s Only Two Earliest Colored Sodas: H. Deming & Co. and C.C. Habenicht•Probst & Hilbs German Bitters Little Rock, Ark.•Pressed Stoneware Bottles•Whites Prairie Flower•Caswell Hazard Druggists•Glasgow Bottling Company•Smith & Jones–Brazil, Indiana Bottlers•Basement Bottles Beer Stein Bling: A Primer•Where do they get all these old bottles?•Da Bear and Other Cool Bottles Dug in 2023•An Unusual American Liberian Dual Embossed Jar and so much more!

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To Submit a Story, send a Letter to the Editor or have Comments and Concerns, contact:

Elizabeth Meyer

FOHBC Business Manager

P.O. Box 1825

Brookshire, Texas 77423-1825

phone: 713.504.0628

email: fohbcmembers@gmail.com

Fair use notice: Some material in Antique Bottle & Glass Collector has been submitted for publication in this magazine and/or was originally published by the authors and is copyrighted. We, as a non-profit organization, offer it here as an educational tool to increase further understanding and discussion of bottle collecting and related history. We believe this constitutes “fair use” of the copyrighted material as provided for in Section 107 of the U.S. Copyright Law. If you wish to use this material for purposes of your own that go beyond “fair use,” you must obtain permission from the copyright owner(s).

Antique Bottle & Glass Collector © (ISSN 10505598) is published bi-monthly (6 issues per year) by the Federation of Historical Bottle Collectors, Inc. (a non-profit 501(c)(3) educational organization) at 2131 Peach Ridge Road, Brookshire, Texas 77423-8834; phone: 713.504.0628; Website: FOHBC.org, Non-profit periodicals postage paid at Brookshire, Texas 77423 and additional mailing office, Pub. #005062.

Postmaster: Send address changes to Elizabeth Meyer, FOHBC Business Manager, P.O. Box 1825, Brookshire, Texas 77423-1825; 713.504.0628, email: fohbcmembers@gmail.com

Annual subscription rate is: $40 for standard mail or $55 for First Class, $60 to Canada, $80 Other countries, $25 Digital Membership [in U.S. funds]. Life Membership: Level 1: $1,000, Level 2: $500. The Federation of Historical Bottle Collectors, Inc. (FOHBC) assumes no responsibility for products and services advertised in this publication. See page 72 for details.

The names Federation of Historical Bottle Collectors Inc. (FOHBC), and Antique Bottle & Glass Collector ©, are registered ® names of the Federation of Historical Bottle Collectors Inc., and no use of either other than as references, is permitted without expressed written consent from the Federation of Historical Bottle Collectors Inc. Certain material contained in this publication is copyrighted by, and remains the sole property of, the Federation of Historical Bottle Collectors Inc. while others remain property of the submitting authors. Detailed information concerning a particular article may be obtained from the Editor. Printed by Modern Litho, Jefferson City, Missouri.

FOHBC Board of Directors

The Federation of Historical Bottle Collectors is a non-profit organization for collectors of historical bottles, glass and related collectible items. Our primary goal is educational as it relates to the history and manufacture of historical bottles and related artifacts.

FOHBC Officers 2022–2024

President: Michael Seeliger, N8211 Smith Road, Brooklyn, Wisconsin 53521, phone: 608.575.2922, email: mwseeliger@gmail.com

First Vice-President: Position Open

Second Vice-President: Stephen R. Jackson, P.O. Box 3137, Suffolk, Virginia 23439, phone: 757.675.5642, email: sjackson@srjacksonlaw.com

Secretary: Alice Seeliger, N8211 Smith Road, Brooklyn, Wisconsin 53521, phone: 608.575.1128, email: aliceajscreative@gmail.com

Treasurer: Kathie Craig, 1037 Hazelwood Avenue, Campbell, California 95008, phone: 408.591.6511, email: kathiecraig@sbcglobal.net

Business Manager: Elizabeth Meyer, FOHBC, P.O. Box 1825, Brookshire, Texas 77423, phone: 713.504.0628, email: fohbcmembers@gmail.com

Director-at-Large: Ferdinand Meyer V, FMG Design, Inc., 101 Crawford Street, Studio 1A, Houston, Texas 77002 phone: 713.222.7979 x115, email: fmeyer@fmgdesign.com

Director-at-Large: John O’Neill, 1805 Ralston Avenue, Belmont, California 94002, phone: 650.619.8209, email: Joneill@risk-strategies.com

Director-at-Large: Richard Siri, PO Box 3818, Santa Rosa, California 95402, phone: 707.542.6438, email: rtsiri@sbcglobal.net

Northeast Region Director: Charles Martin Jr., 5 John Hall Cartway, Yarmouth Port, Massachusetts 02675, phone: 781.248.8620, email: cemartinjr@comcast.net

Midwest Region Director: Henry Hecker, W298 S10655 Phantom Woods Road, Mukwonago, Wisconsin 53149, phone: 262.844.5751, email: phantomhah@gmail.com

Southern Region Director: Tom Lines, 1647 Olivia Way, Auburn, Alabama 36830, phone: 205.410.2191, email: Bluecrab1949@hotmail.com

Western Region Director: Eric McGuire, 1732 Inverness Drive, Petaluma, California 94954, phone: 707.481.9145, email: etmcguire@comcast.net

Public Relations Director: Position Open

Conventions Director: Craig Cassetta, 12 Marlin Court, Chico, California 95973, phone: 530.680.5226, email: craig.cassetta@gmail.com

Historian: Brian Bingham, 4305 Arbor Cove Circle, Oceanside, California 92058, phone: 442.264.9945, email: brian.bingham@att.net

Membership Director: Elizabeth Meyer, FOHBC, P.O. Box 1825, Brookshire, Texas 77423, phone: 713.504.0628, email: fohbcmembers@gmail.com

Merchandising Director: Position Open

FOHBC Virtual Museum

Alan DeMaison, 1605 Clipper Cove, Painesville, Ohio 44077, phone: 440.358.1223, email: a.demaison@sbcglobal.net

Joe Gourd, 27W058 Fleming Drive, Winfield, Illinois 60190, phone: 630.653.7088, email: joegourd@aol.com

Ferdinand Meyer V, FMG Design, Inc., 101 Crawford Street, Studio 1A, Houston, Texas 77002, phone: 713.222.7979 x115, email: fmeyer@fmgdesign.com

Miguel Ruiz, FMG Design, Inc., 101 Crawford Street, Studio 1A, Houston, Texas 77002, phone: 713.222.7979, email: mruiz@fmgdesign.com

Richard Siri, PO Box 3818, Santa Rosa, California 95402, phone: 707.542.6438, email: rtsiri@sbcglobal.net

Antique Bottle & Glass Collector

Editor & Design: Peachridge Collections, LLC, Ferdinand Meyer V and Elizabeth Meyer, P.O. Box 1825, Brookshire, Texas 77423, phone: 713.222.7979 x115, email: fmeyer@fmgdesign.com

Proofreaders: Alice Seeliger and Bill Baab

Featured Writers: Ralph Finch and Andy Rapoza

Federation of Historical Bottle Collectors

President’s Message

Michael Seeliger

President Federation of Historical Bottle Collectors

N8211 Smith Road, Brooklyn, Wisconsin 53521

608.575.2922

mwseeliger@gmail.com

Here We Go…We’re in the final stretch toward Houston 24. I’ve been sharing the FOHBC and Houston 24 message at shows in Chattanooga, Kalamazoo, Minneapolis, Rochester, Mansfield and Saratoga. We’ve brought in lots of new or renewal memberships and Houston 24 is on most people’s radar as I encourage them not to pass up this oncein-a-lifetime opportunity. I can feel the excitement building (especially when someone gets to hold the blue Drake’s Plantation Bitters commemorative bottle at the last couple shows).

Inviting Feedback…I’m finding that conversations go several ways: people have made their Houston 24 plans realizing what a great time they will have; those who are undecided change their minds once I point out all they will miss; and those who think it’s too expensive begin to understand how much they will get for their money and decide to make it a family vacation. And then there’s the old-time bottle collectors who think Houston 24 may be even better than St. Louis in 1976!

Get your Glass in the Grass…Houston 24 kicks off Wednesday morning, July 31 with “Glass in the Grass,” an “out-of-your-trunk” sale under the pecan trees at the Meyer residence in Brookshire. Who knows what will show up, but surely there will be treasures to be discovered. Catch a quick bite from Luchi & Joey’s breakfast taco truck and we’ll be out of there before the Texas heat arrives in the afternoon. (You may need a jacket for the rest of the events indoors as Houston boasts the best air conditioning in the country.) Brookshire is about an hour away from the Exhibition site and we’ll be offering some transportation both ways.

Taking Care of Business…First thing Thursday morning in Houston, get your early admission pass, dealer packet, souvenir program and banquet tickets. Then prepare to be wowed at the Open House with full access to the Houston Museum of Natural Science, Special Exhibits and tours of Hermann Park and the Museum District.

Prepare to Be Awestruck…Spend the rest of the day taking in all the Museum has to offer. The Museum and Joel Bartsch are underwriting much of Houston 24 and the artistry of their displays will inspire the whole family. You will have full access to the Museum through Monday. Trust me, allow plenty of time to visit everything: fantastic minerals and gems, a butterfly dome, King Tut’s Tomb recreated, dinosaurs, early American artifacts, and so much more.

es and the Wilber & Gugliotti Barber Bottle collections, and the commemorative books featuring these exhibits, will be unveiled. You’ll get your first look at the “Three Blue Bitters Bottles” together again. I plan to spend some time listening to personal stories by past owners of these three gems.

Fun, Food & Friendly Competition…A Texas Hold ’em Antique Bottle & Glass competition and cocktail reception is Thursday evening. Enjoy catered hors d’oeuvres and cash bar followed by a spirited comparison of glass in three different categories.

Meet & Eat for Members…Attend the FOHBC membership breakfast meeting early Friday morning to vote on proposed bylaws revisions and board positions and get an update on Federation activities and plans. We are setting the course for the next few years with plans to get the Auction Price Report updated; implement a new, enhanced website; and continue increasing our membership. Come hungry…members will enjoy a full, catered breakfast to fuel an activity-filled day.

Seminars, Ribbons, Early Admission, Mix & Mingle, Dinosaurs & Dining, Oh My!...Fill up the rest of the morning with excellent seminars. Then prepare for the Ribbon Cutting Ceremony just before 1:00 and the beginning of Early Admission to the FOHBC Houston 24 National Antique Bottle and Glass Exposition, evening Cocktail Mix & Mingle and the Federation “Dinosaur Banquet.” (Picture sitting under T-Rex or a brontosaurus looking over your shoulder…low color-enhanced lighting adds to the ambiance.)

Bring it On!...Saturday, 9 am sharp, dealers welcome the public. A bargain entrance fee of $5 gets everyone into the Expo and Museum! Displays will draw lots of attention and a chance to vote on your favorite. Seminars, youth activities, raffles, merchandise sales, and virtual museum imaging will keep the place hopping until the Bayou City Sunset Auction takes center stage with pre-auction viewing at 5:30. I have my eye on a couple items!

Rinse & Repeat…Tuck away those items you bought at the auction and enjoy Sunday at the Expo (til 3 pm). Check out the displays, Museum, and special exhibits. Take some time to visit with other collectors and plan your Monday Museum visit available until 6 pm.

Pre-Expo Parting Thoughts…The Hotel ZaZa room rate is looking pretty attractive at this point having experienced room rates of $170+ over the last few months. Digging is making a comeback (that ship has sailed for me) and new tools are making it easier. Stories shared are stories saved, we’re on Webinar #14. The Federation needs you…your input, your support, and your involvement. Enthusiasm is contagious—I hope you’ve caught mine!

At 1:00, special features, American Antique Glass Masterpiec-

What more can I say? See you in Houston!

Shards of Wisdom

“Heard

it Through the Grapevine”

Researching bottles by Eric McGuire

For those who like to research bottles, the U.S. Copyright Office is embarking on a massive digitization project that will eventually include thousands of bottled products. The project is in its infancy, even though more than 11.5 million pages of copyright records have already been scanned. One might ask what this has to do with bottles. The U.S. government has offered a number of methods for the protection of proprietary products. The owners of bottled items often chose to copyright the wording on labels, flyers, and other documents as a method of protecting their business interests. It was not unusual for proprietors to submit bottle labels as examples of the wording they chose to have protected under the copyright system. Those labels were often included in the copyright statements, and are most prevalent from about 1845 to 1870, depending upon the “whims” of the particular registration clerks working within the U.S. District Court system, who were responsible for documenting copyrights.

This digitization project has a long way to go in order to be an effective tool for bottle research, but it is beginning to happen, which is a huge step in allowing the public viewing of records that were previously extremely difficult to access. Save the attached URL in the accompanying information page for current and future research (go.loc.gov/sWli5OQwT7u).

In His Garage, an Untrained Artist Created a Work of Sublime Divinity – Smithsonian Magazine

How deep faith created one of the loveliest—and most curious—sacred objects in the Smithsonian collections

For some 14 years he labored in solitude. Lovingly. Obsessively. Every night after work, in a rented garage on 7th Street NW in Washington, D.C., James Hampton, a World War II veteran and janitor for the General Services Administration with no artistic training, methodically built what he came to call The Throne of the Third Heaven of the Nation’s Millennium General Assembly. Hampton prepared the throne to receive Jesus, flanked by a dozen angels, at the time of the Second Coming.

Born in 1909 to a South Carolina preacher, Hampton, who may have lived with schizophrenia, had his first religious vision at the age of 22—a visitation from the patriarch Moses. He later said Adam and the Virgin Mary had come to him as well. Why he began the Throne in 1950, no one can say. Passion. Devotion. Divine inspiration. But it came to comprise a handmade masterpiece of 180 or so separate components, each crafted from found and scavenged parts. Hampton embellished discarded furniture and light bulbs, tin cans and jelly jars with gold and silver foils and wrapping paper—materials reflecting light and inspiring something like awe at the prospect of an apocalyptic end to this world and the peace and glory to come in the next. Leslie Umberger, a curator at the Smithsonian American Art Museum, de-

scribes the part of the sculpture on display as the “central section of a spiritually driven, pulpit-style array” that Hampton created “as a sacred space for sharing his faith.” The “third heaven” is a reference to God’s home, an exalted heaven-within-a-heaven; the Throne, Hampton is reported to have said, “is my life. I’ll finish it before I die.”

Hampton’s materials were an inventory of junked 1950s office supplies: inks and desk blotters, construction paper and sheets of transparent plastic. The chairs and altars and offering tables are made of what he carted home from used furniture sellers, often cut in two. Each half of the assembly is beautifully symmetrical with the other. It is a miracle of craft and art and carpentry, of architecture and engineering, ingenuity and loneliness and holy madness. With a million featherlight hammer taps, Hampton built batches of trim molding and sawtooth decoration. Wings upon wings upon wings. Above the throne, Hampton placed these words of reassurance from Revelation 1:17: “Fear not.”

The Throne’s story has since hardened into legend. Hampton died of cancer at a Veterans’ Administration hospital in 1964. The work was unfinished. But then his landlord, Myer Wertlieb, came to the garage to collect the overdue rent, not knowing Hampton had died. Instead, he found the Throne. For months, Wertlieb searched without much success to find someone, anyone, who might want it. Then Harry Lowe got involved.

“It was like opening Tut’s tomb,” Lowe, head of exhibitions and design at what was then the National Collection of Fine Arts, told the Washington Post about entering that garage for the first time. Lowe paid the landlord Hampton’s back rent and arranged the purchase of the entire assembly for the museum. A selection from the center section was first exhibited in 1971. The illustrious art critic Robert Hughes wrote in Time magazine that the Throne “may well be the finest work of visionary religious art produced by an American.” Just as often, though, critics marginalized it as “outsider” art.

Now, a new generation of curators and conservators are working on the Throne, and their cozy laboratory at the museum, filled with magnifiers, sable brushes and purple nitrile gloves, is open to the public a few afternoons each week. There you can talk to conservation fellows Katya Zinsli and Eliza Macdonald as they catalog, clean, examine, scan, restore, record and photograph every piece of the Throne.

“It is always such a nice surprise to find Hampton’s fingerprints,” Zinsli says. “I have found at least one on almost every object in the collection, in nearly every medium. I’ve found it as smudged ink on paper; paint transfer on plastic; and the oils from his fingers forever etched into the aluminum foil. It is an ever-present reminder of his hand.”

Shards of Wisdom

“Heard

it Through the Grapevine”

The Throne is not only an act of electrifying veneration; it is also a time machine, an escape pod, an expression of postwar nuclear paranoia. The Throne may be as much a reflection of post-atomic American anxiety as any work of art by Jackson Pollock or John Cage.

On display beside the Throne in the laboratory is the notebook Hampton kept, called The Book of the 7 Dispensation, containing page after page of cryptic symbols, strokes and slashes, numbered by chapter like the Bible but largely indecipherable. At the bottom of most pages, the word Revelation is inked in Hampton’s jittery block printing. Flipping through the book is like reading in tongues. Inside, Hampton refers to himself as ST JAMES. In one of the few known photos of Hampton, he stands before the Throne, a slender man of perfect seriousness, purely awkward in a suit and tie, wearing a marvelous cardboard crown covered in metallic foil. You read too much into it: self-denial, self-mortification, beatific martyrdom and the sacrifice of ecstatic madness—the state of every saint. How little we really know of this man, the mystery of whom somehow makes his art, this heaven beyond heaven, all the greater.

Brewing Beer in 1933

FOHBC Historian, Brian Bingham, sent in a 5” x 7” 1933 chart illustration (pictured on the right). “Malt is germinated barley. Germination develops the enzyme diastase (A diastase is any one of a group of enzymes that catalyses the breakdown of starch into maltose) which is capable of saccharifying (make into sugar) the starch of the malt and also that of grain mixed with it.” A

Images courtesy of the Smithsonian American Art Museum

Hampton with his creation in the Washington, D.C. garage where he worked in the 1950s and early 1960s. Unknown photographer.

The Throne of the Third Heaven of the Nations’ Millennium General Assembly, James Hampton’s strange and transporting magnum opus.

FOHBC News

From & For Our Members

Schafer

and Vater figural whiskey nip

Good morning Michael, I wanted to thank you for posting pictures of the Minnesota show! The picture of Steve Ketchum and his table showed a Schafer and Vater figural whiskey nip that I didn’t have in my collection so I contacted Steve and arranged to buy it. Just because of the pics you posted! Thanks again! Every time show pics are posted, I scan them closely looking for treasures. This is the first time it’s led to a purchase!

Tom Lines Auburn, Alabama

American Antique Glass Masterpieces

Hi Miss Meyer, I got my last issue of the magazine and the annual expo program looks great. Is it possible for those of us who will not be able to attend to order the exhibition book American Antique Glass Masterpieces as I would very much love to have a copy? Please consider including order information in the next issue of the magazine or reply to me with instructions. Thank you for your valuable time. Cordially,

Mark Hoeltzel, Ayer Massachusetts

[Elizabeth] Mark, both hardbound, museum-quality books go on sale at the Houston 24 Expo and will be on sale by the FOHBC afterward. Notices will be placed in the magazine, website and sent via email to all members. The 300+ page books list as $95 each on the cover and will be discounted for FOHBC members with a further discount if you buy both books.

Best Drinking Water in Charleston

I thoroughly enjoyed David Kyle Rakes’ article in the MayJune issue, Best Drinking Water in Charleston. As a Northerner and avid water researcher, I will note a possible correction to his claim: “By 1767, Jackson’s Spa in Boston was the first to begin bottling mineral water commercially.” I suspect Rakes could be citing the late (great) Cecil Munsey from his 1970 The

Illustrated Guide to Collecting Bottles. Unfortunately, Munsey does not provide any source reference for this statement, and in researching for my 2023 book, Granite Fizz, The Untold Story of Spring Water and Flavored Tonic in New Hampshire, I could not find any authoritative reference to a Jackson Spa or Spring in the greater Boston area. The Massachusetts Historical Society research arm thoroughly looked into this reference for me in 2021 and could not substantiate it (there were other springs used by Colonists and Native Americans, of course, but nothing called “Jackson”). In correspondence to me on this issue, Tod von Mechow offered: “I suspect that Munsey took that date off of the High Rock Spring (Saratoga) water bottle, which I believe has the 1767 date over the rock. I think that is when the spring was discovered.”

But if any FOHBC readers can shed any light on the Jackson Spa/Spring and bottled water reference, that would be a tremendous help and greatly appreciated by many of us. Pinning this down to historical fact has been somewhat of a mystery in the bottled water world, and your insights could be the missing piece of the puzzle. Thank you in advance for your assistance.

Dennis Sasseville Bedford, New Hampshire

Bottles & Jugs of Central Montana

The FOHBC is working with Henry Thies on an upcoming article Glasgow Bottling Company. Some of you may know Henry from his outstanding book Bottles & Jugs of Central Montana (pictured next page.) “Delving into the history of Central Montana through an unexpected lens, local resident Henry Thies has authored a captivating book titled Bottles & Jugs of Central Montana. A passion ignited half a century ago has culminated in this remarkable publication, chronicling the stories hidden within these everyday artifacts. Fifty years ago, in the Missouri River’s embrace, Henry Thies unearthed his very first bottle. This serendipitous discovery marked the inception of a hobby that would captivate him for decades to come. Intrigued by the stories these humble containers held, he embarked on a journey to collect and preserve these tangible links to the past.” Logan T. Machtemes Cut Bank Pioneer Press, August 30, 2023

Henry Thies

FOHBC News

From & For Our Members

Jack Sullivan Checking In

Ferd: Hope this finds you and Elizabeth in good health. You have a mighty task with the FOHBC meeting soon in Houston. Wish that time had not caught up with me and I could be there. My reason for writing is to ask your permission to use the biographical write up that appears with the Samuel Brothers entry in the FOHBC Virtual Museum. Both Alan (DeMaison) and I see the elegant Meyer style although it is not signed. I have been looking at the Samuels (and “Uncle Benno”) for a number of months, reviewing a blizzard of narrative but have not found a handle. Then discovered the Museum entry, an excellent piece. I would like to use it for my Those Pre-Pro Whiskey Men blog and put in a plug for the FOHBC and the Virtual Museum.

To bring you up to date, I am now at 1,776,000 plus “hits” on the blog and sometimes recording 1,0002,000 visits daily. I have reduced the frequency of posting from six days to four, a surrender to turning 89. All the best.

Jack Sullivan

Alexandria, Virginia

Early Sodas of Texas book

Hi Ferdinand, I hope all is well with you and yours. I was wondering what you were going to do with the cover for the May–June 2024 issue of AB&GC? I think it’s so cool the way you advertised the Houston 24 Expo reflected on the skyscrapers. I was even trying to look closer to see if you adver-

tised on the reflection on the building on the right! I also like both the Space City and Land of Oz advertisements for Houston 24. The latter shows more color with the nice blues, purples, and pinks.

My Best Drinking Water in Charleston article looks wonderful. Marty (Vollmer), Chip (Brewer) and Jamie (Westendorff) will certainly be reading it. And thanks for ending the article with highlights of our three books together. Outstanding! I’m back to researching for Texas sodas. I’m getting ahead of myself, but was thinking maybe Brandon (DeWolfe) could add some digging stories throughout the Early Sodas of Texas book. I think he would be quite capable. I mean he is going to have a seminar about history and digging in Galveston so he is very knowledgeable. I haven’t said anything to Brandon because I wanted to see what you thought. I already put his name on the front cover because he has been indispensable for this project. Best,

David Kyle Rakes Summerfield, Florida

The Antiquers. We’re in Dallas.

Applied top spirits bottle embossed

“Bottled By Samuel Bros & Co.

Louisville Ky San

Francisco Cal Ok” (with monogram).

Courtesy FOHBC

Virtual Museum, Alan DeMaison

Mr. Seeliger, I contacted you back in early December about our club, The Antiquers. We’re located in Dallas. At that time, no one was working on programs for our next calendar year: September, 2024 to May, 2025. In the next few months our program committee (the nominating committee is meeting this month to get volunteers for the position) will start working on the programs for ‘24-‘25. We have monthly meetings from September to May. Historical bottles sounds like a very interesting topic and one I think our members would enjoy. We are a small group of 35 members, and have been meeting since 1991. We have lunch and then a program that usually lasts a half hour or so. You mentioned in your email to me that in all likelihood, there were some members of the Federation of Historical Bottle Collectors in the Dallas area who could probably do a program for us. It would be great to identify a speaker on this topic to share with the Program Chair. I appreciate any help you can give our club.

Elsie Carpenter, Treasurer, The Antiquers, Dallas, Texas

Cover and interior spread from Bottles & Jugs of Central Montana by Henry Thies

“John Hoerr & Bro. Texas” soda water bottle.

FOHBC Regional News

Please visit FOHBC.org for expanded coverage.

Northeast Region [Charlie Martin, Jr., Director]

Bottle show season is in full swing here in the country’s Northeast Region. Of course, you will have already scheduled your trip to the Houston 24 Expo from August 1 and running until August 4. It promises to be an event you will be talking about for years to come with fellow attendees. If you are attending the Houston Expo, please take a moment to say hello. If you are from the Northeast Region, I will try to get your thoughts and comments for a future article about your experience at this unique, once-in-a-lifetime event. I look forward to chatting with as many collectors as time permits. If you arrive in Houston on or before July 30, please plan to attend the Peachridge Glass “Glass in the Grass” event hosted by Elizabeth and Ferdinand Meyer on July 31. Details can be found on our website, FOHBC.org.

Moving on, the 53rd Annual Genesee Valley Bottle Collectors Association’s (GVBCA) Rochester Bottle and Antique Show is in the books. Show Chairs Aaron and Pamela Weber can breathe a bit easier now! Alan reports, “When all was said and done, we sold 204 tables to 94 dealers from 11 states, Wisconsin being the furthest to the West, Connecticut to the East, Florida to the South, Maine to the North. Not too shabby. Admissions were great this year. We jumped from 563 to 676 this year, bringing us back to pre-Covid years, plus a little. The 2024 displays were something—club member Dick Campbell won the award for Most Educational with his “The Detailed Embossing of Pharmacy Dose Cups.” The People’s Choice Award and the Dr. Burton Spiller Best of Show Award went to Linda Curtis, who put together another outstanding decorated stoneware display, “Advertising & Merchant Stoneware & Pottery.” A show of this magnitude requires many hands to ensure its success. Aaron and Pamela wish to extend their gratitude to all the club volunteers for their help and support; without them, the show might not go on!! Thanks to All!!”

July 12-14, 2024, is the Shupp’s Grove Summer Bottle Festival in Reinsholds, Pennsylvania. Early buyers can pay a premium to enter the show on Friday. Admission is free on Saturday and Sunday. You can find more information on the FOHBC show calendar. The following week, on July 21, 2023, the Capital Region Antique Bottle Club will host their annual show and sale at Mabee Farm Historic Site at Rotterdam Junction, New York.

Again, I encourage all bottle clubs to connect with the FOHBC to ensure their club’s show is promoted and advertised in the best possible way. If you have questions about submitting a show report or need any other information for your club, please do not hesitate to ask. All FOHBC directors are working tirelessly to ensure that your club prospers!

Be sure to check the FOHBC online Show Directory or in every

issue of Antique Bottle & Glass Collector; that is where you will find all show listings for the coming months. Try to make a plan to attend a show near you, even if it is outside of your routine. You may make and discover new friends and find additional contacts to help you grow your collection. Until the next issue, Happy bottle hunting!

Western Region [Eric McGuire, Director]

Like previous posts, I want to share a recent activity involving an informational event that includes the Northwestern Bottle Club of Sonoma County and the Sonoma County (California) Museum. Current club president, John Burton, worked with the museum to create an informational display featuring the local brewing industry from its early beginnings to the present day. As expected, the display includes many examples of local 19th-century bottles on loan, primarily from John’s collection. In the last decade, we have witnessed a virtual explosion of local “micro-breweries,” much like in the late nineteenth century and up to Prohibition. Nearly every town had its brewery. After the repeal of the Volstead Act in 1933, beer production was primarily dominated by big national breweries, but in the last decade or so, we have witnessed the resurgence of many smaller breweries. This local brewing history is nicely showcased through the cooperative alliance between a county museum and a local bottle club.

The value of this venture is two-fold. It creates a well-presented and popular element of historical significance to a local audience, and it gives a greater community value to a bottle club

Northwestern Bottle Club president John Burton.

that may otherwise be judged as just a bunch of odd people who like to hoard old bottles. As many recognize, bottles represent a tangible historical fabric of our culture that deserves to be documented. This cooperative effort gives greater community value to local history and local bottle clubs.

The 49er Historical Bottle Club wrapped up its second summer “get-together” at the home of Trish Adams in Grass Valley, California, on June 6. A similar event was held at the home of Rick Pisano on April 6, also in Grass Valley. These well-attended events are becoming popular summer venues. They remind me of nascent attractions that could easily blossom into East Coast examples, such as that of Norman Heckler in Woodstock Valley, Connecticut. Minus the auction, sales tables were available, along with a few scheduled talks. Lunch was also served. However, these are strictly club member events.

Midwest Region [Henry Hecker, Director]

My thoughts and prayers go out to all those dealing with the crazy and downright dangerous weather hitting a large part of our country this spring. Flood and tornado warnings are almost the order of the day. We have had our share of both here in Wisconsin with two hailstorms. It makes me think about updating the insurance on our collections. Our journey to Houston later this summer could prove interesting. A random thought… I wonder if a privy is as safe as a culvert if a digger is caught in a twister?

The Milwaukee Club had an exciting meeting at a member’s home this May. The host, Barna Bencs, collects everything Racine and Kenosha, Wisconsin. Barna gave an engaging presentation on a Racine Dairy that operated from about 1914 to 1921. For a long time, it created lively debate among local collectors about its existence. It was known basically by the existence of a single 5-cent token. Ideal Dairy was operated by two brothers whose involvement was interrupted when they served in WWI. What made the presentation so amazing was that a couple of years ago a whole cache of memorabilia from this dairy was discovered in his mother-in-law’s estate. The dairy had been in the

family! Everything from sales records, blacksmith receipts for the delivery of horseshoeing, promotional literature for Thatcher milk bottles, and paper leave-behinds extolling the health of Ideal Milk were discovered. Ideal Dairy has gone from an urban legend to the most well-documented dairy of the 50 that operated in the area at the time. Barna says, “Old things seem to find the collectors that appreciate them.” Or are the original owners interceding from the beyond? No embossed milk bottles from this dairy have been found, but perhaps it’s only a matter of time.

The Ohio Bottle Club mourns the loss of Bill Koster, one of its founding members, going back to 1967. Bill was known to take young and new collectors under his wing and foster “new blood” to the hobby, something we must all do.

At a recent 1st Chicago Bottle Club meeting, Mario Pisterzi brought a grouping of nice fruit jars. One was made of cast iron and dated from the Civil War. “The cast iron jars would be filled with preserved food and sent out in the supply wagons to feed the troops. When the jars were empty, the troops could fill them with explosives and scrap metal and fire them out of cannons! As a result, finding one of these jars still intact and not blown to pieces is quite amazing.”

Display of “Early Sonoma County Beer Bottles” from the John C. Burton collection.

FOHBC president Michael Seeliger set up at the FOHBC table at this year’s Mansfield, Ohio 45th Antique Bottle Show, hosted by the Ohio Bottle Club. Mike is holding one of the freshly-blown cobalt blue Houston 24 commemorative Drake’s Plantation Bitters bottles.

National Antique Bottle & Glass Expo

01-04 August 2024

An Event & Experience that will be remembered for generations...

Houston 24 the most exciting antique bottle and glass event in a generation!

The beautiful butterfly and spectacular early glass is our theme as you can experience the Cockrell Butterfly Center habitat and see the featured Sandor P. Fuss “American Antique Glass Masterpieces Collection” and highlights from the legendary “Wilber and Gugliotti Barber Bottle Collections.” On display for the first time ever!

The “Glass in the Grass” bottle sale event, will start things off on 31 July where dealers can sell from their vehicles under the shade of large pecan trees in the cooler lowlands of the Brazos River. The traditional antique bottle and glass show & sale will be held at Hotel ZaZa, our host hotel located adjacent to the museum. See outstanding displays and attend educational seminars, youth events, a live auction, bottle competition, awards banquet, membership meeting breakfast, book sales, museum tours, virtual museum imaging and so much more.

Underwritten and supported by the Houston Museum of Natural Science (HMNS), the Federation of Historical Bottle Collectors (FOHBC) and Hotel ZaZa. Brought to you by Peachridge Collections LLC

Event Information Packets, Hotel Registration, Schedule of Events and Attendee Contracts now online. Exhibition books will be on sale at the Expo. Limited dealer space and tables so make

Virtual Museum News

By Richard T. Siri, Santa Rosa, California

The FOHBC Virtual Museum has been established to display, inform, educate, and enhance the enjoyment of historical bottle and glass collecting by providing an online virtual museum experience for significant historical bottles and other items related to early glass.

AlanDeMaison is a busy man as he and Terry Crislip conducted an initial trip to image the Joan Cabaniss poison bottle collection in Virginia this past April. Alan is back in Ohio processing the spinners and sending them to Ferdinand (Meyer) in Houston who is organizing and researching the material that will go next to Miguel Ruiz in Almaty, Kazakhstan. Miguel will then load the material into the museum Poison Bottle Gallery website. The Virtual Museum team hopes to have the bottles in the gallery by the end of the year. Alan and Terry are planning a second trip to see Joan to complete the assignment. We also report a generous gift of $1,000 from Joan and the Antique Poison Bottle Collectors group.

Alan and Terry are planning to image Fire Grenades next and are planning to visit William Edens and Vicki Freund in Tennessee this fall. From material provided, Alan counted 80 different styles and forms of Fire Grenades. The plan is to spin one example in each style and at the same time image variants, paper labels with a single picture. Vicki and William provided Peter Kvale’s list of grenade manufacturers for reference noting that there are 125 or so and within each manufacturer there are sometimes five or six different variations in style. Kvale has recorded over 700 variations with regard to color, style and fluid.

Alan and Terry will also be set up and imaging at the Houston 24 Antique Bottle and Glass Show at Hotel ZaZa. Alan asks that you make reservations to image any special bottles you are bringing. Afterward, they will be imaging the American Antique Glass Masterpieces and Wilber–Gugliotti Barber Bottle collections at HMNS.

Alan was also the guest speaker at the National Association of Milk Bottle Collectors (NAMBC) at their annual convention this past May and was asked to talk about the Virtual Museum. He and his team are planning future galleries for milk and creamer, Christmas lights, lightning rod balls, barber bottles and imaging more inks.

Please help us fill our PHASE 4 “Wishart’s Pine Tree Tar Cordial” bottle. FOHBC VIRTUAL MUSEUM OF HISTORICAL BOTTLES

Please help us with our Phase 4 fundraising capital campaign to continue development of the FOHBC Virtual Museum. The FOHBC and the Virtual Museum team thank our many donors who have helped us raise over $106,868 to date. We have $15,743 in available funds to continue development to build our galleries, exhibition hall, research library and gift shop. Donations are tax deductible. All donors are listed on our Virtual Museum Recognition Wall

With one salaried website technician averaging $1,200 a month, we need help. We are continually traveling to collections, so more costs are incurred. All other time is donated by the Virtual Museum team out of our love and passion for the hobby and the FOHBC. Thank you!

Donations to the Museum are always needed to ensure we continue. We are a 501(c)(3) educational club, so your donation is tax deductible.

“The

CORNER #11

[Mike Dickman]

HOLY GRAILS

E[Inset] “Sir Galahad and the Quest for the Holy Grail,” painting by Arthur Hughes, 1870

very collector of antique bottles probably has a Holy Grail, and often more than one. According to medieval legend, the Holy Grail was the cup used by Jesus at the Last Supper and then by Joseph of Arimathea to collect drops of His blood at the Crucifixion. The cup later went missing, and the quest to find the Holy Grail became the subject of poems, ballads, songs and paintings. Today, the phrase means any elusive object of great significance. In this article, let’s look at the Holy Grails of a few prominent collectors of applied color label (ACL) soda bottles.

FOHBC member Tom Pettit of Florida is an avid and knowledgeable collector of ACL sodas who displayed his bottles at the FOHBC 2019 Augusta National Antique Bottle Convention. VintageSodaCollector.com, Tom’s website, is an outstanding resource containing hundreds of color photos and essays about all things ACL. Tom began collecting about a decade ago and currently owns 2,000 ACL soda bottles. After much thought, he decided that his Holy Grail is Beach Club Beverages of Fernandina Beach, Florida, the northernmost city on Florida’s

[Fig. 1] Beach Club Beverages, Fernandina Beach, Florida, 1941. Photo courtesy of Chris Weide

Crown cap for Beach Club Beverages, which is even harder to find than the rare ACL bottle.

[Background]

Holy Grail,” painting by Johannes Adam Simon Oertel, 1877

Atlantic Coast. [Fig. 1] The simple blue and white ACL from 1941 depicts a young lady lounging on the beach, and the glass is molded with vertical stripes above and below the label that complement the Art Deco-style letters. Only a few examples are known, although we can hope that a case of them (24 bottles) might be discovered someday. I’d love to add an example to my collection!

Three veteran collectors (Ryan Berlin of South Dakota, David Meinz of Florida and Don Vinson of Texas) have the same Holy Grail: Princess Beverages, a 12-ounce bottle from Logan, West Virginia [Fig. 2] The label features a portrait of a beautiful Indian maiden with a wistful expression in her eyes, and the bottle combines two of the most popular categories of ACLs—Indians and Ladies. Logan was a coal mining hub with a population of 5,000 people in 1940 when the bottle was made, but it had shrunk to just 1,438 in the 2020 Census. The city is named after Chief Logan of the Mingo Tribe (who died in 1780), so perhaps the ACL portrait is meant to be his princess daughter. Although Ryan, David and Don collectively have thousands of bottles in their collections, they covet this bottle as their Holy Grail, as do many other collectors. Like Beach Club Beverages, only a handful of the bottles are known, and the price of either in today’s market is purely speculative.

Another pretty maiden from the same Mingo Tribe is shown on Mingo Beverages from Williamson, West Virginia, in Mingo County. [Fig. 3] Williamson is just 30 miles from the city of Logan, where Princess Beverages was bottled. It was made in 1950 and is not a Holy Grail since the bottles are uncommon but obtainable (in two varieties, orange-and-black and red-andwhite). I’ve included it here to show that many wonderful ACL soda bottles exist that won’t break the bank. A mint example of an orange Mingo Beverages recently sold for $85.

Chief Logan of the Mingo Tribe (1723-1780), possibly the father of the fictional “princess” depicted on Princess Beverages.

Princess Beverages and Mingo Beverages illustrate another characteristic of many soda bottles from the ACL era—labels with local themes marketed to a small group of consumers but created with tremendous thought, care, and artistry. This is True Americana.

Chris Weide of Indiana is one of the most well-known and knowledgeable collectors of ACLs. He started collecting as an eight year old in 1967 and recently retired after a long career with the railroads. Chris has a collection of almost 20,000 ACL soda bottles. I’ve previously mentioned his website and used photos of bottles from his collection. So, what’s his Holy Grail? It’s actually a group of three bottles made for use in the club cars on the Burlington Railroad’s Zephyr passenger trains. [Fig. 4] The Zephyr operated from 1949 to 1970, traveling between Chicago and Oakland, California, and was famous for its in-train fine dining with silk tablecloths, china, silverware and fresh flowers. The bottles were made in 1946 (before the Zephyr be-

[Fig. 2]

Princess Beverages, Wholesome Health, Logan, West Virginia, 1940. Photo courtesy of Tim Miller.

Crown cap for Mingo Beverages. Despite the added expense, many small-town bottlers opted to create a proprietary cap for their soda brand.

[Fig. 3]

Mingo Beverages, Williamson, West Virginia, 1950

A scene from the Navajo Nation, which is larger than the states of Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Vermont combined. Navajo Land soda was made in Gallup, New Mexico, located near the southeastern boundary of the vast reservation.

gan service), held 4 ounces, and probably were meant for mixers such as club soda and tonic water. Chris believes the bottles are prototypes that were never actually used on the trains. Only a couple of sets exist. Chris found his Holy Grail a few years ago when he was able to buy a set of little bottles from the Burlington Railroad Museum.

Tim Miller of Indiana has an impressive collection of ACL sodas, which can be seen on his Facebook page, which is referenced below. Tim owns one of the few known Princess Beverages and many other rarities. His Holy Grail is a mint example of Big Chief Beverages from Safford, Arizona [Fig. 5], made in the late 1930s. The bottle itself is extremely rare, but it is virtually

[Fig. 6]

Navajo Land Gallup, New Mexico 1940

[Fig. 5]

Big Chief Beverages, Safford, Arizona, 1939. Photo courtesy of Ryan Berlin.

[Fig. 4]

Set of Burlington Railroad’s Zephyr prototype bottles, 1946. Photo courtesy of Chris Weide.

Advertising postcard for the Burlington Railroad’s Zephyr train, circa 1949

Postcard from Safford, Arizona, where the Big Chief soda shown in Figure 5 was bottled. Safford was settled in 1874 by Mormon pioneers.

A stand selling individual drinks of Big Chief root beer in Kansas City, Missouri. Big Chief Beverages also were bottled throughout the West, Midwest and Deep South using dozens of different ACLs. Photo courtesy of VintageSodaCollector.com

unheard of in mint condition. It’s an example of what collectors sometimes call “condition rarity.” Back in the day, ACL sodas were sold to consumers with a bottle deposit added to the price, and they were made to be returned, washed, and reused over and over again. For whatever reason, this particular bottle invariably is found with faded labels, chips, scuffs and/or scratches. A mint example (if one exists) would indeed be a Holy Grail.

Rick Sweeney of California wrote the book, Collecting Applied Color Label Soda Bottles which was published in three editions in 1995, 1998 and 2002. Although out of date in terms of prices, the book has hundreds of color photos, is chock full of information, and remains the best reference work on ACL sodas. Rick sold his extensive collection years ago. I asked him what bottle he’d most like to own again and he picked Navajo Land, a black-and-white 1940 bottle from Gallup, New Mexico. [Fig. 6]

When I asked him why he desired this specific bottle (which is hard to find but available from time to time), he wrote: I can’t think of any other bottle made by a “mercantile company” [Gallup Mercantile Company] which almost connotes a trading post. New Mexico had been a state for only three decades when the bottle was produced. When I look at the bottle, I can picture a great big, traveling Buick pulling up to a filling station on Route 66 outside Gallup. The car doors burst open as a gaggle of kids fall out near the gas pumps, pass a table filled with Indian trinkets for sale and head straight for the cooler, looking for a Coke. Instead, they’re greeted by a Native American image on the side of a sweet soda bottle as they satisfy their thirst. What a history lesson! Like Princess Beverages and Mingo Beverages, Navajo Land is pure small-town Americana.

So what’s the author’s Holy Grail? Good question! I have dozens of Holy Grails, but if I had to pick one, it’s Luscious Beverages, a 12-ounce bottle from Arkansas City, Kansas [Fig. 7] (a small city pronounced “Ar-Kanzess,” unlike the state of Arkansas). To me, it’s got one of the best labels. An attractive woman faces for-

ward holding a hand of playing cards, with a bottle of soda pop at her side. She has a slight, ambiguous smile on her face. Does she have a royal flush? Or is she bluffing? The ACL is large and is printed with unusual orange-over-white colors, and says that the soda is “Refreshing and Cooling” and “Correct for all Occasions.” The back label says, “Luscious Beverages are Packed with Food and Energy!” (Really, food!?!) A nice example of the bottle was offered on eBay in 2023 and sold for $1,725. I was one of the 40+ under bidders and watched my Holy Grail slip away. But I love the thrill of the hunt, and, like many of us, I’m an optimist. Perhaps I’ll find one someday at a garage sale for five bucks!

The author welcomes comments, questions and suggestions at mikedickman@yahoo.com

BIBLIOGRAPHY:

Sweeney, Rick, Collecting Applied Color Label Soda Bottles (3d ed. 2002, PSBCA).

Tim A.C.L.-Miller, a FaceBook page showing hundreds of rare ACL sodas from Tim’s collection.

VintageSodaCollector.com by FOHBC member Tom Petitt, a great resource containing hundreds of color photographs as well as interesting, useful articles about all things ACL.

Weide’s Soda Page (ca-yd.com), by Chris and Catherine Weide, another great resource.

Wikipedia entries for Chief Logan; Holy Grail; Logan, WV; Williamson, WV; and Zephyr.

[Fig. 7]

Luscious Beverages, Refreshing and Cooling “Correct for all Occasions,” Arkansas City, Kansas, 1941

Small and large size “River Swamp Chill & Fever Cure” bottles.

Once a collector, always a collector

By Bill Baab

Ihave been a collector of something or other since my pre-teen years: stamps, coins, insects (butterflies, moths, beetles), seashells—you name it, I’ve probably collected it.

During the summer of 1968, I joined other outdoor writers on Cumberland, a barrier island off Georgia’s coast. (It is now a Georgia state park). Our host took us on a tour. We viewed the remains of “Dungeness,” a mansion that had burned some 20 years before our visit. On a side yard were many glass bottles in strange shapes. All of their bottoms were round. “What the heck!” I exclaimed. They would not stand up. Our host invited us to take some home as souvenirs of our visit. I believe that I was the only one to pick up a couple, each with different tops.

Referenced “River Swamp Chill & Fever Cure” advertising trade card.

They proved to be my entry into the wonderful world of antique bottle collecting. I did some research and learned the bottles contained ginger ale. Later, a friend told me about the Federation of Antique Bottle Clubs (later Collectors). I joined (in 1969), and my new hobby unfolded before my eyes.

I learned that trash pits on the outskirts of Augusta, Georgia, my home sweet home, contained treasure troves of antique bottles. A friend told me of the location of an early (1880s) dump. I was able to get permission to do some shovel-digging as long as I left no holes. I soon discovered round-bottomed ginger ales and embossed local drug store bottles, bitters bottles and patent medicines.

One of the strangest of the latter was the River Swamp Chill & Fever Cure of Augusta, circa 1880-90. Later, I purchased one of the company’s trade cards, which boasted “NO CURE, NO PAY.” The amber embossed bottle featured an alligator, making it one of the most desirable CURE bottles to collect. My visit to a nearby antique store led me to a shelf on which lay a small-size River Swamp. The seller asked $35. I hesitated because I felt that was an enormous price. Eventually, I bought it.

I discovered early Augusta business directories in our local library during my research. There were advertisements describing many local and regional patent medicines. At the time, I was compiling many histories of the druggists responsible for the medicines, and I soon had enough to think about writing a book.

In 2007, the first edition of “Augusta on Glass” was self-published by my supportive wife, Bea, and I. The late Augusta historian, Dr. Edward J. Cashin, wrote its foreword. He wrote: “What sets Bill Baab apart from the casual collector, other than his zeal

in finding objects, is the research he did to identify the provenance of each item. This involved time-consuming investigations of newspaper archives and city directories...a friend challenged him to publish his findings; this book* is the result.” *The book is out of print.

About a decade ago, my wife and I donated our 531-bottle collection to the Augusta Museum of History, where parts of it can be seen today.

Bill & Bea Baab posing in front of their collection that they donated to the Augusta Museum of History. The FOHBC held an event at the museum during the 2019 Augusta National Antique Bottle Convention.

BLOWING SMOKE ON THE IDEAL VICTORIAN LADY

“SMOKIN’

HOT WOMEN”

The 1890s was a decade squarely focused on ideal form and fashion— women with hourglass shapes, perfect complexions, and smoldering Gibson Girl looks, expertly coiffed and always wearing the latest fashions. No one felt the strain of presenting properly for public appearance more than the Victorian woman. She was told by men and media to be stylish, beautiful, and a lady. There was more pressure on a woman to be ideal than there was on her body from the corset she wore, and just like the corset, she was expected to maintain proper form all day long. It was considered undeniable that she was “the weaker sex,” physically and intellectually inferior to men, dependent upon and subservient to her husband, and designed for beauty, virginal modesty, domestic duty, and motherhood. Any behaviors breaching this mold were viewed as morally, socially, and physically dangerous and signs of an unvirtuous and fallen woman—certainly no lady.

smoking. But the female body is no more adapted to the use of tobacco than the female mind is to mathematics. It causes neuralgia, headache, dyspepsia, palpitation of the heart, and, worse than all, ruins the complexion and disorders the teeth— all will agree that the stale odor of tobacco coming from a woman’s mouth is worse than the same smell exhaled by a man—men’s nervous systems are not so impressionable as women’s, and hence a man can do many things with impunity, or even benefit, which would be impossible for a woman to do without great risk. Beauty is the smallest gift a woman can have, for it not only means aesthetic enjoyment for all who look at her, but it means a healthy mind and a healthy body. Poor frail, fragile creatures, the doctor insisted, clearly the weaker sex.

A perfect example of this physical and behavioral confinement of women was the rigid social construct that a gentleman could freely smoke, but a lady never should. A New York physician’s statement on the matter was copied in many newspapers as if it was a public service health announcement: Ladies—take the use of cigarettes to their very great detriment— men are [not] often injured by the moderate use of tobacco in

Despite laws and social mores, women and adolescents were smoking those “obnoxious and injurious cigarettes,” and men and boys were spitting out tobacco juice at or across the path of oncoming members of the fairer sex for amusement or out of sheer meanness. Tobacco use was becoming ubiquitous, and its smokey seduction was settling over men, women, and children across the country like a London fog. On January 1st, 1891, a newspaper squib read, “A good many New Year anti-tobacco resolutions will end up in smoke.”

Sweet Sixteen Cigarettes illustration – courtesy of Barbara Rusch

Some companies quickly recognized the growing interest of young women to explore the cigarette experience by sneaking smokes, so they tried to pitch the social acceptability of allegedly medicinal cigarettes to alleviate symptoms of colds, allergies and asthma (pretty much all conditions falling under the catch-all term, catarrh). A few of these products, like Perrin’s and Marshall’s, offered cigarettes made from cubebs, a tropical bush of the pepper family with a very pungent taste and aroma that was often difficult for the smoker and bystanders to enjoy. But hey, it’s medicine, and strong, off-putting aromas and flavors were considered signs of its medicinal qualities and benefits: if it was yucky, it must be good medicine.

The two companies were producing the same type of medicated cigarettes, using the dried-up, ground berries of the cubeb plant, but their approach to advertising was very different.

Dr. Perrin’s advertising trade card showed their cubeb cigarettes being used by the whole family: Grampa and Gramma are in the lower corners, both looking old and weary; the son in this family is wearing knickers and has schoolbooks tucked under his arm and his sister is in the other corner (with a short skirt that emphasized her youth rather than suggesting her to be a fallen woman); and in the center was mom, relaxing in her comfy stuffed chair, her feet up on the hassock, a book in one hand and her Dr. Perrin’s cigarette in the other. The message was clear: cubeb cigarette smoking is okay—”every-

one’s doing it.” The smoke that emanates from the entire family’s cigarettes or lips is clear—it was purposely understated to make the activity less offensive and to get the reader to focus on the medicinal nature of the advertising message. Perrin’s was trying to encourage the use of their cubeb cigarettes by both sexes and all ages because of the product’s alleged health benefits for all; they were definitely trying to avoid any impression that they were attempting to break Victorian mores.

Marshall’s went in the opposite direction with the subtlety of a runaway freight train. What I find especially interesting about the Marshall’s advertising matter shown here is the manufacturer’s effort to show that the trademark woman smoking their cubeb cigarette is still the Victorian ideal of a beautiful, genteel lady. But if that was the intention, it just doesn’t work. It seems highly unlikely that those who frowned on females smoking could have their opinions changed by this image. She looks like a tough, hardened woman with smoke rising from her cigarette and her lips; she’s not even trying to exhale discreetly to the side. She looks completely relaxed, not at all worried about being caught in a guilty pleasure—and she is purposely blowing billowing plumes of smoke like a factory smokestack, not to mention that she is demonstrating a skill at creative smoking—not just making smoke rings, but a full advertising message: “Marshall’s Prep’d” (“Prepared,” emphasizing they were ready-made, so ladies didn’t have to futz around with rolling the ground cubebs into cigarette papers like the men were constantly doing to make

Marshall’s Prepared Cubeb Cigarette box label – collection of the author.

Dr. Perrin’s Medicated Cubeb Cigarettes for Catarrh advertising.

package.

their tobacco cigarettes). So, by skywriting in smoke, she had “skills,” I guess, but she still looks more like a saloon floozie than a Victorian lady.

Then again, that may be exactly the type of woman Marshall was going for—not a floozie, but a young woman who was ready and willing to break barriers, listen to her own desires, and blow smoke in the face of stodgy, controlling husbands, crusty clergy, and prim society women who still weren’t willing to make waves—or clouds of smoke.

UPDATE: My dear friend, Barbara Rusch, offered me the use of the “Sweet Sixteen Cigarettes” image from her collection as an appropriate addition to this post on the Victorian cultivation of young women as smokers. She called it my article on “Smokin’ Hot Women”—indeed, a better title for this topic than I had given to this blog. Given the manufacturer’s use of this young model to promote Sweet Sixteen cigarettes (not “medicinal” cubebs but actual tobacco cigarettes), this advertisement is clearly designed not only to sell this brand of cigarettes but to encourage the sexualization of young women and immodest behavior. Then, as of now, some things never change.

Wea ponized Bottles Fight ing Witches & Demons in Colonial America

Houston 24 Seminar #1

Andrew Rapoza, historian and author of Promising Cures, a four-volume, three-century history of health in a New England community, will present the little-known evidence of colonists using counter-magic including “witch bottles” to fight witchcraft in the

Evil—the colonists felt surrounded by it. As they settled in the wilds of the New England and Mid-Atlantic colonies, their faith was constantly tested and their fears often seemed overwhelming—with good reason. They were assaulted by life-threatening challenges: droughts, crop failures, sudden death of farm animals, bread that wouldn’t rise, family members who fell sick from strange, unrecognized sickness, and much more. They were convinced the Devil was using witches to destroy them. Many tried to protect their families by carving magical symbols into their houses and hiding magical objects under floors and behind walls—the most powerful of these were bottles they packed with special objects designed to kill witches. Ministers warned that they were falling under Satan’s power by doing these things. But they were desperate... Friday, 02 August 2024, 9:00 am

Hotel ZaZa|Room with a View

decades before and after the infamous Salem witch trials of 1692.

Marshall’s Cubeb Cigarettes

My Magical Whirlwind Trip Brad Dalton

SEE MAP & PICTURES ILLUSTRATED ON FOLLOWING SPREAD

Ijust returned home to Boerne (pronounced “Bernie”) Texas after a magical whirlwind trip. The first day, 29 April, I met with master electrician Ray Meyer and purchased three exceptional bottles that he found this past February at an excavation site near the old Duerler Manufacturing and Bottling property in downtown San Antonio. The “G. A. Duerler San Antonio Texas” round-bottom Hutch is now the second known example (I have the first from the David Cole collection). The second bottle is a rare “Emil Krafft Trade Mark (star) San Antonio Tex” Hutch that I didn’t have, and the third is a neat “Sunset Bottling Works San Antonio Tex” Hutch variety, which I didn’t have either. All three bottles are in phenomenal condition despite being stained.

It was an exciting day as I knew that Glass Works Auctions had a sale closing that night, and I was chasing drugstore bottles. I won all three lots I bid on but I am incredibly excited about Lot 211 described as follows: (Lot of 5), (1) “J.J. Thomas Drug Co / Only The Best / The Rexall Store / Taylor, Texas,” (2) “From Mitchell’s / Drug Store / McKinney, Texas,” (3) “Covey & Martin Co. / Druggist / Fort Worth, Texas,” (4) “Miller Bros. / The Prescription Druggist / Junction City, Kansas,” (5) “From / E.A. Daniels / The Rexall Store / McAlester, Okla.,”American, Ca. 1890 - 1910, Shades of yellowish green, 3 1/4” to 4 1/2” H, Various embossing on smooth bases, tooled lips. All are in ‘as found’ dug condition with varying degrees of light stain. The Mitchell’s has a clean 1/4” ‘gouge’ type chip at the shoulder. Don Ramsey Collection.

On Tuesday, April 30, I was at Hotel ZaZa in Houston for a busy day of Houston 24 meetings with many team members, including Expo chair Ferdinand Meyer V and FOHBC president Michael Seeliger. We reviewed our events, had a great lunch at Monarch on the patio, and then crossed the street and met at the Houston Museum of Natural Science. We reviewed the exhibition spaces and the Hall of Paleontology, where we will have our Dinosaurs Banquet.

Wednesday morning, I arose early and left Houston. I brought my new bottles for some tumbling (along with 67 from the David Cole collection) and to visit with Texas bottle legend Wayne Fults near San Augustine, Texas. He will probably lightly tumble the round-bottom Duerler on the inside only as I like its pearl, light cornflower iridescent patina shared somewhat with the other two bottles.

Next, I traveled to nearby Nacogdoches, Texas to visit Dr. Pepper and Coca-Cola specialist Randy Bricker and met him at his quaint, packed, but marvelous store, Corner Collectibles. I finalized our previous deal for the extremely rare circle “A” (only three examples known), late 1890s, early applied crown top. It has a marvelous light apple green-slight citron color, and the only embossing is a small capital “A” on the semi-rounded base. It is documented as an ultra-rare bottle and listed in Ray Duncan’s Dr. Pepper book as 10+++. It was most likely bottled with a paper label noting that it contained raspberry cordial (wine) or ginger ale. It came with a scarce three-prong period holder. I also purchased two more similar round bottom period holders. I left a little after noon as I had to drive 335 miles southwest to Bulverde, Texas, to see my 8th-grade grandson, who was inducted into the National Junior Honor Society. It was a magical three days indeed!

I have attached several photos of the bottles, including some rare San Antonio and other Texas bottles from the ex-Cole collections. They are being lightly tumbled for me by Wayne. I was on the fence about doing it, but I definitely had to have that yellowing lacquer and painted embossing removed. They will be part of one of my displays at Houston 24. I’ve been documenting the process, and it will be a good article for Antique Bottle and Glass Collector, as the David Cole collection is legendary.

My bottles laid out on a table at Wayne Fults. I took 72 with me for him to tumble. The vast majority were from the David Cole collection.

Magical Whirlwind Trip

I purchased three exceptional and rare San Antonio bottles from Ray Meyer [#2] that were rescued at a February 2024 excavation site near the old Duerler Manufacturing and Bottling property in downtown San Antonio. That’s me shaking hands with Ray.

2 San Antonio, Texas 29 April 2024

“Home Sweet Home” Brad Dalton

JustaHop-Skip&Jump hometoBoerne!

1 Start Bourne, Texas 29 April 2024

Justabout40 milesfrommy housetomyfirst stopinsouthSan Antone.

These bottles traveled with me to Wayne Fults. It included two different straight side Coca-Cola scripts from San Antonio and the three from Ray Meyer. All five were to get tumbled as they were massively stained and corroded.

#7 Mylongestdrivewas335milesfromNacogdochestoBulverde,Texas

#7 Bulverde, Texas 01 May 2024

My last stop was attending my grandson Stevie’s National Junior Honor Society Induction Ceremony at 6:00 pm.[#7] I made it on time after traveling 335 miles from Nacogdoches

Left to Right: Three bottles purchased from Ray Meyer [#2] included a “Emil Krafft ‘Star’ picture Hutch, San Antonio, Tex,” “Sunset Bottling Works San Antonio Texas” and a “G. A. Duerler San Antonio” round bottom Hutch.

1,765milesto GWAinEast

Greenville, Pa.Gladthe auctionwas online!

“Sunken Garden and Warwick Hotel Houston, Texas” postcard. The historic hotel is now Hotel ZaZa Museum District.

#3

Glass Works Auctions

Discovery Auction #171 29 April 2024

On Tuesday night I was fortunate to win three lots of colored drugstore bottles. [#3] The first lot had three Texas bottles!

HoustontoSanAugustine about165miles

Full day of Houston 24 meetings at Hotel ZaZa on Tuesday. [#4] #3 #4 #5 #6

Next I visited with Randy Bricker at Corner Collectibles in Nacogdoches. [#6] #4

Nacogdoches, Texas 01 May 2024

SanAugustineto Nacogdochesabout 35miles

Hotel ZaZa Houston, Texas 30 April 2024 #5

My visit with bottle legend Wayne Fults near San Augustine. [#5] He was to clean 72 of my bottles purchased from David Cole and Ray Meyer.

San Augustine, Texas 01 May 2024 #6

I purchased this 1896 Circle “A” green applied crown top round-bottom bottle from Randy Bricker. [#6] It is thought that the embossed “A” on the bottom of the bottle was for R.S. Lazenby and his bottled Ginger Ale and other flavors like a Bitters Tonic and Blackberry Cordial Wine. A paper label would have identified the contents. Note the crude applied crown closure top common among 1891-1898 bottles.

“Saturday afternoon - San Augustine, Texas,” 1939, New York Public Library Digital Collections

Archaeologists Dug Up a Vanished Texas

It’s part of a $51 million project to rebuild Washington-on-the-Brazos, “the birthplace of Texas,” where the declaration that created the Republic of Texas was signed.

By Pam LeBlanc, Texas Monthly

, May 6,

2024, Illustrated by the Editor

In 1843, Sam Houston toiled away at a desk in a sixteenby-sixteen-foot log cabin not far from the muddy banks of the Brazos River. From that makeshift office in Washington-on-the-Brazos, about halfway between Austin and Houston, the then-president of the new Republic of Texas penned letters inviting the chiefs of several Native American tribes to join him for a council meeting. Many of the chiefs came, among them leaders from the Caddo, Delaware, and Shawnee tribes. They spent nearly two weeks in the rough-around-the-edges little town, meeting with officials, demonstrating skills, dancing and playing music, and signing a treaty.

Today, there’s not much to indicate the significance of the spot where Houston’s cabin once stood, at one end of the long-vanished town of Washington-on-the-Brazos. This place is nicknamed the birthplace of Texas since the declaration that created the Republic of Texas was signed on March 2, 1836 (in Independence Hall, just a few hundred yards from Houston’s cabin). However, only a few wooden stakes are punched into the dirt to mark the place where Houston’s cabin once stood. That’s about to change.

The remains of an old brick fireplace uncovered at Washington-on-the-Brazos.

Archaeologists recently completed excavations along the town’s main road as part of a $51 million, five- or six-year project to improve the Washington-on-the-Brazos State Historic Site, operated by the Texas Historical Commission. The state set aside some of the land for a small park in 1915. More land was later added, and in 1970, the 22,000-square-foot Star of the Republic Museum opened. But the museum, along with a riverside picnic area and a re-creation of Independence Hall, never fully conveyed a sense of what this frontier town was really like. Now architects are preparing to rebuild some of the ramshackle old community where so much Texas history took place.

Texas Town and Found 10,000 Artifacts

[A] Photograph of Washington on the Brazos taken around 1860 shows a row of multi-story brick buildings and other structures south of Independence Hall. Courtesy of Jonathan Failor, Washington on the Brazos State Historic Site.

[B] Mexican military insignia. Brass plate with four holes. San Jacinto Museum and Battlefield.

[C] Ditty bag with multiple compartments. Served as military utility kit, made of blue wood and lined in red wool and cotton. “H Rumler,” stitched with red thread on wool exterior. Bag belonged to Sergeant Henry A. Rumler, 3rd Regiment, Company F., Spanish-American War. San Jacinto Museum and Battlefield.

[D] Washington County, map, April 19, 1863; Gieseche, Albert, Austin, Tx. University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, Texas General Land Office

[E] Fragments from a dinner plate recovered from Washington-on-the-Brazos.

[F] Masonic apron. Decorated with masonic emblems, including the key at top center. Embroidered in gold spangles and fine braid (gold and silver). Lined in rust silk. Provenance Receipt of gift notes, “Probably worn by Madison G. Whitaker, veteran of the Battle of San Jacinto.”

[G] Universal Bitters. In the mid to late 1870s, the brand was represented by Alphonse Walz of New Orleans and A. E. Neuberg of Chicago. Kieffer moved to Texas and was manufacturing and marketing his bitters out of San Antonio (near the Alamo), where he had family. PeachridgeGlass.com

[H] Replica of Independence Hall, where the Texas Declaration of Independence was signed. The inscription reads: “Here a Nation was born.” San Jacinto Museum and Battlefield.

[I] 1920 Inspiration Point Overlooking Brazos River Weatherford, Texas postcard.

[J] Sam Houston, circa 1850.

Washington-on-the-Brazos historical marker.

When the project wraps up, by late 2025, visitors will be able to visit seven full or partial re-creations of structures that once lined La Bahia Road, a major thoroughfare that carried goods and travelers hundreds of miles across the state from Goliad to Nacogdoches. Besides Houston’s office, they’ll be able to stroll past a drugstore where townsfolk bought basic supplies, poke their heads inside a carpentry shop, look down on the foundation of a typical home, and step inside a pool hall and tavern that doubled as a meeting place for government officials. The project also includes renovations at the park’s visitors center and new exhibit space at the Star of the Republic Museum, which houses maps, documents, and what’s believed to be the only existing flag from the Lone Star State’s nearly ten-year period as an independent republic. The revamped site may also include a dry-docked re-creation of a ferry that transported travelers across the Brazos River, just down the hill. “We’d like to get people in the mindset that they’re on a street grid,” says Jonathan Failor, manager of the Washington-on-the-Brazos State Historic Site.

Washington was platted in 1835. By 1836, about a hundred people lived there, sipping drinks in its multiple taverns, fitting their horses with shoes at a blacksmith shop staffed by slaves, and purchasing clothing at the tailor shop. From 1842 to 1845, during Sam Houston’s second term as president, the town also served as the capital of the republic. “It’s known as the place where Texas became Texas,” Failor says. “Texas was its own country, and the town of Washington has a role in that. That story never really got told, and people want to engage in history in a tangible way.”

The population had hit roughly one thousand by 1852, making Washington one of the largest cities in Texas. But after residents rejected a proposal to bring the railroad there in 1858, the town shriveled on the vine. A few photos from the late nineteenth century show the town’s slow decline; in 1912, a fire burned the remaining structures. By the 1920s, German immigrants had moved to the area and begun building homes. But those structures, too, eventually fell into disrepair.

Today, clear glass signs etched with the outlines of some of the homes and businesses along the main street give visitors an idea of what the street once looked like. But Failor hopes the reconstructed town buildings will help tell that story in an even more visual way. Visitors will be able to explore the townsite on their own, and although nothing has been finalized, occasional living history programs and special events are likely. The state legislature has allocated $41 million for the project, and the Washington on the Brazos Historical Foundation has raised about $5.6 million of the remaining $10 million needed to do the job.

Despite the fame of the site, crews trying to re-create the town had surprisingly little to go on. The only known plat map of Washington-on-the-Brazos vanished during the Great Storm of 1900. Researchers used tax records and other documents to determine roughly where buildings were situated, then surveyed to look for anomalies below the ground. “Some fun things popped up, including the brick foundation of a house built in the 1830s,” Failor says.

Excavations began last September. Over the following six

months, crews pushed buckets of dirt through sieves, looking for traces of the old town. They dug trenches, searching for evidence underneath the 20-by-150-foot plot where archival records indicated Houston’s presidential office once stood. On the third try, they found a hole where a support post had been. From there, they determined the footprint of the 16-by-16-foot building and uncovered nails, window glass, buttons, and bits of ceramics, all buried under more than a foot of dirt.

“When you think about the stuff that occurred in this building...” Failor says, his voice trailing off. The reconstructed office will be positioned just in front of the actual site, to preserve it.

Down the road, a tavern and pool hall called Hatfield’s Exchange also played an important role in the town’s history. Ministers once used its pool tables as sermon pulpits, and it served as the House chamber for the republic. It was where, in 1845, Congress made the decision to let residents vote on whether the republic should join the United States. They voted yes, and the republic’s flag was lowered for the last time on February 19, 1846, two months after Texas officially became a state. “Some great debates happened here,” Failor says. Hatfield’s burned in 1854, and signs of its existence disappeared beneath farmers’ plows.

Across the street, archaeologists uncovered the brick floor of a house built in the 1830s that was later covered by another building. Crews will re-create the outside of the structure, then build a catwalk inside so visitors can walk along it and look down on the original floor. Farther down the street, teams will rebuild Hall & Lott’s Tavern, where Davy Crockett stayed on his way to the Alamo.

Among the 10,000 or so artifacts archaeologists have uncovered are nails and other building materials, the remains of an old brick fireplace, the key to a gold pocket watch, buttons from a soldier’s uniform, gun flints, animal bones, pipes, glassware, ceramics, and coins, including a Spanish silver dollar from 1820 and an 1831 U.S. dime—essentially, “everything you might find on a city street somewhere,” Failor says.

A lab in McKinney is processing artifacts, and architects from the Texas Historical Commission, in collaboration with historian and subject matter expert Michael Moore, are busy designing the buildings. Because they have no photos to reference, they’ll base their plans on what was typical of the time and place. Construction should begin sometime this summer, and the finished project—a row of modest structures along a dirt road that cuts through a field thick with grass and brush—should provide an authentic perspective on the Lone Star State’s past.

“What this reconstruction will do is remind us of Texas’s agrarian roots, which I think is pretty cool,” says Carlos Kevin Blanton, a longtime history professor at Texas A&M University. “It serves as a reminder that the Texas we know today—whether you think of it as a nation or a state or maybe even a state of mind—has very, very humble beginnings.”

(1) Best Texas Soda Bottle. Embossed or Applied Color Label.

(2) Best Texas Medicine (Includes bitters, cures and remedies, but does not include drug store)

(3) Best Glass Insulator

Make plans to participate in or attend an exciting antique bottle and glass judged competition at Houston 24!

This year at Houston 24, we will entertain three categories in our competition including (1) best Texas Embossed or Applied Color Label Soda Bottle, (2) best Texas Medicine (Includes bitters, cures and remedies, but does not include drug store) and (3) best Glass Insulator.

Let’s see if you have a contender that can pass muster with our paneled judges! First, second and third place awards will be given. As with all FOHBC National events, security will be provided. For additional information please contact Brad Dalton (brad.daltongang@yahoo. com) or Ferdinand Meyer V (fmeyer@ fmgdesign.com). See FOHBC.org Info Packet Competition Application for more information. Entrant registration will be at 6:00 pm in the adjacent Room with a View. Walk-in contestants encouraged and allowed!

The event will be catered with hors d’oeuvres. Cash bar. Parking at Hotel ZaZa is $12 for Event.

This Event is FREE

NEW FOHBC MUSEUM EXHIBITION BOOKS

On Sale at Houston 24!

AMERICAN ANTIQUE GLASS MASTERPIECES

The depth and breadth of the Fuss Collection place it among the greatest groupings of Early American glass ever assembled. Many of the objects are unique and of those with multiple examples known, Sandor has chosen the finest available. The Fuss Collection is a monumental achievement made possible by his great eye, unwavering focus, and determination. It is a joy to share this fabulous glass with the World! [Jeff Noordsy]

WILBER & GUGLIOTTI BARBER BOTTLE COLLECTIONS

Being avid barber bottle collectors, we were excited when Joel Bartsch, president of the Houston Museum of Natural Science, asked us to help produce this book. We knew we would get to handle some of the greatest barber bottles and related glass items in existence. The group of items Joel has assembled includes the Dave Wilber collection, the Anthony Gugliotti collection and still others Joel purchased separately.

The Wilber collection is massive, more than 1,000 pieces, and we knew it contained some great pieces that were sold at auction 15 to 30 years ago. The Gugliotti collection contained hundreds of items, and included a lot of rare shaving paper vases. We were familiar with numerous pieces in the Gugliotti collection because they are pictured in earlier books about barber bottles. [Ed & Kathy Gray]

Opening of the American Antique Glass Masterpieces (Brown Gallery) and Wilber & Gugliotti Barber Bottle Collections (Hamill Gallery) exhibitions will occur on Thursday afternoon, 01 August 2024 at 1:00 pm at the Houston Museum of Natural Science and will signify the start of the FOHBC Houston 2024 National Antique Bottle & Glass Exposition.

Each book is 300+ pages, full-color, hard bound with dust jacket, museum quality and will be sold at Houston 24 and afterward by the FOHBC for $95 each. (Discount for FOHBC members) Book signing available at opening.

Soldier of Fortune:

By Frank Sternad and Eric McGuire

[Fig. 6] Aquamarine, 8-inch tall, applied top bottle ordered from the Pacific Glass Works in San Francisco. Bottles embossed “Dr. Furber’s Cordial of Mountain Balm, Yreka, Cal.”

: George Furber and his Cordial of Mountain Balm

Whena U.S. Census taker visited the Jones Boarding House in Cincinnati, Ohio, on September 12, 1850, he was advised that George C. Furber had “Gone to California,” leaving his young wife Sarah and infant daughter Lucy in the care of Sarah’s parents, Aquilla and Anne Jones. News of the gold discovery near Sacramento exploded into a mass migration, luring some 300,000 people from all reaches of the Americas and overseas, and 32-year-old George Campbell Furber, a freshly trained physician and war veteran, was one of them. He headed to the western edge of the nation where, on September 9, 1850, California had been admitted to the Union as the 31st state.

The Republic of Mexico had long governed Alta, California. Still, since the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo formally ended the Mexican-American War in February 1848, the territory became part of the United States. Furber had joined the fight as a U.S. Army private in May 1846, as a “twelve months volunteer” attached to a cavalry regiment from Tennessee. He kept journals and made drawings of what he witnessed throughout the campaign, and after mustering out in May 1847, he published three books based on his experiences.[1]

In the first volume, The Twelve Months Volunteer, Furber describes the beginnings of his medical training: “The author, a young man who had a short time previously completed his preparatory study of medicine under surgeon Dr. J.W. Stout, and was endeavoring to pass away the time until the next session of the medical college by the study and practice of law [in Germantown, Tennessee], suddenly felt the influence of the martial spirit sweeping over the land. He followed his old preceptor, the surgeon, into the ranks of the cavalry regiment.” During his time in Mexico, largely in the states of Tamaulipas and Veracruz, Furber served as a medic within the guard units of army generals and topographical engineers. In another passage, he explains an unusual situation where he was ordered to fall behind the forward march of the regiment and care for men too sick to ride: “The Sergeant Major appeared with some money in his hand and stated, ‘Dr. Furber, it is Colonel Thomas’ direction that you remain in charge of the sick men; that you take this money for expenses and provide yourself with the necessary medicines from the hospital stores immediately.’” [1849 edition, pp. 45, 66] [Fig. 1]

Furber’s predilection for the adventurous life in Mexico and California belies his urban New England background. His father, John Daniel Furber (1772-1840), a tobacco merchant on Boston’s waterfront, maintained a residence in Newburyport, Massachusetts’s whaling and shipbuilding seaport. Two of his sons, Edward Grant Furber (1807-1885) and William Giddings Furber (1819-1905), chose the sea as packet ship masters for the

Fig. 1] Furber’s 1849 book concerning his service in Mexico, The Twelve Months Volunteer, was illustrated with 23 wood engravings based on the author’s sketches. Image no. 8 (opp. p.356) displays some of the country’s natural flora, the size of which impressed Furber so much that he inserted a cavalryman and horse in the foreground for comparison. Key to numbers: 1. Cactus gigantea (Saguaro), 2. Sabal palmetto (cabbage palm), 3. Mexican fan palm, 4. Lignum vitae (Guaiacum), 5. Prickly pear cactus (Opuntia). Engraver was George K. Stillman of Cincinnati.

Black Ball Line running between New York City and Liverpool. George was his father’s fourth son, born November 13, 1817, to his second wife, Hannah Giddings Furber (1780-1822), in Newburyport. When George was twelve, he began studies at the recently opened Boxford Academy, halfway between Newburyport and Boston. What transpired during the next fifteen years of his life is a mystery. Still, he surfaced again in January 1846 when he purchased land on two islands in the Mississippi River near Memphis, Tennessee. Deeds for four parcels (totaling over 1,000 acres) identify the islands as Bray’s and Meghan’s, and at the government rate of 12½ cents per acre, Furber paid about $132 for all of it. The war seems to have interfered with any plans Furber might have had for the development of the land, but he sold one large parcel of 679 acres that cost him a mere $85, two decades later for $2400, proving he was a patient speculator.

Furber’s post-war education is believed to have taken place from 1847 to 1848 at Franklin Medical College in St. Charles, Illinois, a suburb of Chicago. Founded in 1842, it was closed in 1849 after a grave robbing scandal in which two students stole recently buried remains to assist in their education. Because of the desperate scheme at Franklin, officials concluded that grave robbing should not be the sole option for medical students, and a law was passed that directed unclaimed corpses at charity hospitals to be forwarded to medical schools. [For a dramatic portrayal of the use of cadavers in surgical training, see the 2014-15 TV series, The Knick.]

[

Sixteen months after Furber left the Army, he married Sarah Howard Jones in Cincinnati, Ohio, on September 14, 1848. The ceremony was adapted from the Religious Society of Friends in which a justice of the peace officiates with only the bride’s family in attendance. Furber was 30 years old, and Sarah was 16½. She had no idea what an adventurous life lay before her. [Fig. 2]

In California, George Furber arrived in Hangtown (Placerville) in the summer of 1850 after traveling overland by pack train. The trek would have started sometime in the spring aboard a steamboat in Cincinnati, with a probable jumping off place at St. Joseph, Missouri. The California Trail would then take him 1900 miles across the Platte River Valley of Nebraska and Wyoming, via Fort Hall and City of Rocks in Idaho, through the arid Forty Mile Desert of Nevada, and ultimately over the Sierras at Carson Pass south of Lake Tahoe to Placerville: elapsed time, at least four months.

The gold seeker then likely chased after reports of strikes as they rumored their way through the hill country, panning and shoveling with the rest of the cosmopolitan hoard. Eventually he was attracted to mining activity in the northern part of the state. Furber’s son, William G. Furber, recalled that in mid-1851, his father brought provisions for a drug store on mule back to the very young town of Yreka in Siskiyou County from the coastal settlement of Trinidad. This curious journey would have taken him along the Trinity and Klamath Rivers on a route approximating today’s State Route 96. Once in Yreka, Dr. Furber was obliged to spend $150 for a sack of flour to survive the winter of 1851-52.

Abraham Thompson, a mule train packer, discovered gold near Rocky Gulch in March 1851 while traveling along the Siskiyou Trail from southern Oregon. Within a month, 2000 miners arrived in “Thompson’s Dry Diggings” to operate their sluice boxes and, by June, a boomtown of tents, shanties, and rough cabins had sprung up. Several name changes occurred until the settlement was ultimately called Yreka. The name comes from

wáik’a, meaning “white mountain,” the indigenous name for nearby Mount Shasta.

By October 1852, Furber was serving the new community as a general physician and druggist. Sarah came out from Ohio alone; their daughter Lucy had died earlier that year. In 1853 their son Charles Aquilla Furber was born in Yreka. His middle name was taken from his maternal grandfather, Aquilla Jones. U.S. Senate documents show that in August 1854, George C. Furber of Yreka supplied medicines in the value of $309 to the U.S. Army during its campaign to suppress “Indian hostilities in Oregon… drugs necessary for the sick and wounded in Company A and for indigent and sick emigrants.” A December 2, 1871 government report suggests Furber was never paid for the supplies.

In Yreka’s 1857 and 1859 elections, Furber won office as city trustee, and the July 1860 census shows him supporting a wife and five children and owning $14,000 worth of property. The oldest child, adopted daughter Omelia, 14, was born in Iowa, while the others were born in California—Charles, age 7, Florence, 4, Caroline, 2, and William, six months. [Fig. 3]

In contrast to his civic persona, history shows Furber to be relentlessly drawn to the excitement of gold prospecting. The June 11, 1858, Sacramento Daily Union reprints part of a letter he wrote from Séhome (Bellingham), Washington Territory, “The gold field shows equal indications of those of California of early date. How extensive they are no one as yet knows.” A Marysville, California paper noted in October 1859, “Furber, Hawkins & Co., have discovered a quartz lode near Shasta River, which they deem valuable.” And closer to home in April 1866, Furber acquired 50 feet of the Scholes Quartz Ledge on Cedar Gulch in Scott Valley.

In another instance, he raced to a high mountain basin about thirty miles south of today’s Grangeville, Idaho. Rich deposits of placer gold were found there among streams and gulches in August 1861. Furber dropped everything to venture to the district alone in mid-October, pulling “a wagon load of medicines” to offset expenses. Arriving in November and attending a miners’ meeting where the name for the bustling camp was to be decided, legend has it that Furber suggested the name of one of his daughters, Florence. It was accepted and made official when the Washington Territorial legislature designated Florence the seat of Idaho County on December 20, 1861.[2]

[Fig. 2] George C. Furber and Sarah H. Jones, wedding portrait, Cincinnati, September 1848, half plate daguerreotype, California State Library.

[Fig. 3] Furber’s drug store in Yreka, California, circa 1860, contemporary drawing.

In this remote district, Furber showed his inclination to spectacularly uproot his entire family, summoning them to new areas that promised fortune. Sarah and the children dutifully arrived in the territory in late May 1862, having traveled some 900 miles from Yreka via river navigation, wagon roads, and horse trails. The challenging journey took them north to Portland, east to Walla Walla and Lewiston, then southeast on the Lewiston-Florence Trail, which in itself was a 140-mile trek on pack animals to an altitude of over 6,000 feet. Furber worked his claim on Pioneer Gulch, extracting an unknown quantity of flakes and nuggets while the settlement swelled to a population of about 9,000. By late 1862, the placer gold was mostly panned out, the winter promised to be as severe as the record-setting year previous (34° below), Civil War tensions developed among the miners, and lawlessness was rampant. The Furbers joined the growing exodus and returned to California.

Back in Yreka, George won election to the office of Siskiyou County Coroner in September 1863. An intriguing item in the June 15, 1864 issue of Marysville Daily Appeal chronicled the new coroner in action. During an inquest held in a barn, the site of a suicide by hanging, Furber convened an impromptu jury by detaining a large fishing party. Men were separated from their female companions, and the all-male jury became occupied for nearly three hours in arriving at a decision. From the evidence given, the verdict was “death from violence by the victim’s own hands while under a fit of insanity.”

In 1865, Yreka celebrated several Union victories in the distant Civil War; and when it was announced that General Lee had surrendered at Appomattox on April 9, an elaborate parade marched through town and set off a 100-gun salute. Union supporters carried a gigantic effigy of Jefferson Davis suspended from a branch with the label “secession.”

William G. Furber recalled that in 1866 his father initiated a plan to move his family and business some 30 miles south to the town of Rough and Ready in picturesque Scott Valley. The move may have been related to his recent acquisition of mining rights in nearby Cedar Gulch. Actual relocation occurred three years later, in the summer of 1869, after completing a long, rambling, two-story building at the northeast corner of Main and Callahan Streets. The lower floor was used for his medical office, drug store, and the manufacture of a liquid medicine concocted from local botanicals. The spacious second floor was made available for local association meetings. Another section became the family’s living quarters. The building was affectionately known as the “Beehive,” primarily because of the growth of many attached wings and sheds and the constant activity within. A portion of the Mississippi River land that Furber purchased 23 years earlier in 1846 was sold in mid-1869 for almost 30 times the original cost and likely provided funding for the Beehive. [Figs. 4 & 5]

The August 1870 Rough and Ready census reveals that Sarah H. Furber, 37, had delivered two more children since the family was enumerated ten years earlier. The new additions were daughters Sarah R. [Sadie], age 6, and Georgiana, age 5; although not listed, Annetta, age 2, was undeniably in the house. Daughter Florence M. Furber, the Idaho mining town’s namesake, died October 23, 1864, in Yreka at age nine. The census also noted a

total real estate and personal property value of $3,500, an accumulated wealth of $1.4 million today.

With formulation and package development of his proprietary medicine finalized in early 1870, Dr. Furber’s Cordial of Mountain Balm and Oregon Grape made its first appearance in print advertising in July 1870 (Yreka Journal; Mining and Scientific Press). Taking advantage of the federal government’s protections for “intellectual property,” Furber submitted applications for two utility patents and one trademark to the U.S. Patent Office in 1870. One patent, covering ingredients and preparation of the Cordial, was registered in late June, followed by a packaging patent in August and the trademark in December, each stating Yreka as his place of residence. Aqua, 8-inch tall, applied top bottles ordered from the Pacific Glass Works in San Francisco arrived, embossed, “DR. FURBER’S CORDIAL OF MOUNTAIN BALM YREKA, CAL.” [Fig. 6]

Since the move to Rough and Ready occurred in mid-1869, the continued use of Yreka as a business location is somewhat curious. One possibility is that Rough and Ready bore the same name as a town in Nevada County, 60 miles north of Sacramento.[3] On the other hand, Furber may have simply opted for the county seat and major commercial center of Yreka as more recognizable. In 1870, Yreka was the logical shipping point for freight headed south to Sacramento and the San Francisco Bay Area. Although there was no through railroad service near Yreka until 1887, Furber could have hauled his crates of medicine by wagon down the hardened Siskiyou Trail to Red Bluff, head of navigation on the Sacramento River, and accessed his markets via riverboat. [Fig. 7]

Reading the fine print in the Furber’s New Remedy advertisement reveals that a sample pill of Citrate of Iron and Gum Myrrh

[Fig. 5] The Furber building in 1978, 326 Main Street, Etna.

[Fig. 4] Furber’s “Beehive” residence and social hall, Etna, CA circa 1938, aerial view by J.H. Eastman’s Studio.

[Fig. 7] Full page ad from the July 16, 1870 issue of Mining and Scientific Press, published in San Francisco by Dewey & Co., a firm that likely facilitated patent and trademark registrations for Furber. The ad ran until November 12, 1870 and also appeared in an 1871 local business directory.

which was tucked under the label of each bottle, claimed to aid in “restoring color in the cheeks and lips.” The Cordial was touted as “improved from the Shasta Indians’ knowledge and use of these plants for centuries, made known by them to us.” Three bottles could be purchased for a “$5 greenback…for sale at San Francisco by R.H. McDonald & Co., Druggists…or sent by Wells, Fargo & Co’s Express.”[4] The June 28, 1870 patent (No. 104,427) was basically a listing of the ingredients and the method of preparation for Furber’s Improved Medical Compound, viz. dried and pulverized leaves of mountain balm and young roots of Oregon grape mixed with two coloring agents, red saunders and cochineal, all of which was soaked in a 50-50 mixture of alcohol and water for four days. Protein coagulated from buttermilk whey was mixed in, and the product was ready for bottling. While in Mexico, Furber became aware of cochineal, a female insect that lives on prickly pear cactus, and mentioned its value as a red dye in his 1849 book (p. 360).

Mountain balm (Eriodictyon californicum) has expectorant or mucus-thinning properties and is useful for bronchial irritations such as colds and influenza but less effective for asthma. Oregon grape (Mahonia aquifolium) was formerly recommended for treating typhoid fever, diarrhea, urinary burning, and indigestion.

Both plants could be gathered within a 40-mile radius of Yreka, or as Furber described them, “abounding on the base of, and on the Mountains surrounding Mount Shasta, California.” As such, the Cordial would have possessed some mildly therapeutic and nutritional properties.[5] [Figs. 8 & 9]

Fig. 8] Eriodictyon californicum (Mountain balm).

[Fig. 9] Mahonia aquifolium (Oregon-grape).

Furber was not finished with the patent examiners. He also invented a device to improve the packaging of his filled, corked, and labeled bottles—a small, rectangular cardboard tent that fits over the top of each bottle. The die-cut “bottle envelope” reinforced the paper wrapper where it surrounded the bottle neck and shoulder, reducing chances of the package being crushed during shipment. [Fig. 10]

A key feature of Furber’s promotion was the depiction of a leather-bound bible opened to Chapter 38, Verse 4 of the book Ecclesiasticus, inscribed with the quotation, “The Lord hath created medicines out of the Earth. And he that is wise, will not abhor them.” The image, along with “Trade Mark” at the base

[

[Fig. 10]

U.S. Patent No. 106149, registered August 9, 1870, for Furber’s simple yet effective “Bottle Envelope.”

[Fig. 13]

[Fig. 11]

Announcement regarding Dr. Furber’s availability for consultation and purchase of Cordial at Morton House on Post Street, San Francisco Chronicle, March 10, 1872.

Ecclesiasticus. Chapter: XXXVIIL.

– Verse:

Fourth

–The Lord hath created

medicines

out of the Earth. And he that is wise, will not abhor them.”

Testimonial and order for Cordial from Virginia City, Nevada, reproduced in San Francisco Chronicle, June 16, 1872

[Fig. 12]

Notice of Dr. Furber’s availability every Saturday and Sunday at Adams & Company’s Drug Store, corner Post and Stockton, San Francisco Chronicle, May 15, 1872.

of the book, was the essence of his federal trademark registration on December 13, 1870 for “protection and advertisement for my medical compound.”[6]

Furber’s move to Rough and Ready in the summer of 1869 proved to be a very fortunate decision. On July 4, 1871, fire crackers set off on the back porch of a Chinese laundry at 208 Miner Street in Yreka ignited a rapidly spreading blaze, ultimately consuming 15 blocks in just an hour’s time. The heart of the town was destroyed, including the buildings in which Furber previously practiced medicine, conducted a drugstore, and served as coroner.[7]

Furber, again with blind luck, had transported himself and his family to the town of Vallejo, located on the northwestern edge of San Francisco Bay, a few months before the Yreka fire crippled economic conditions in Siskiyou County. He set up a combination physician’s office and medicine depot at 168 Georgia St., plus a residence at 75 Maine St., both close to the waterfront. His son Charles remained behind to manage the family homestead, and rather than relocate the laboratory to Vallejo, Charles would continue putting up the medicine at Rough and Ready, using the original stock of bottles (embossed “YREKA CAL.”).[8]

The port city of Vallejo had ferry service to all parts of the Bay Area and, in early 1872, Furber started making personal appearances on weekends at hotels and drugstores in downtown San Francisco for consultations. He advertised in advance, “Medical examination $1.50; Cordial for one week, the same price.” One of the venues was Morton House at 117 Post St., a hotel that backed onto an alleyway running from Stockton to Kearny called Morton Street. Herbert Asbury in The Barbary Coast wrote, “The worst cribs [brothels] in San Francisco were those which lined both sides of Morton Street…they were also the most popular… partly because the police seldom entered the street unless compelled to do so by a murder or a serious shooting or stabbing.” Given such information, one can imagine the nature of most medical problems Furber consulted about at the Morton. Ironically, the alley today is known as Maiden Lane.[9] [Figs. 11-13]

Sarah and the younger children settled into their new life in Vallejo, and in February 1873, a companion product was developed, a medicinal lozenge marketed as Dr. Furber’s Troches. At the same time, and perhaps related to problems explored below, Furber began to seriously contemplate his mortality. At age 55, soldier-gold hunter-physician-medicine man George Campbell Furber drafted his last will and testament. Scrawled over his signature on May 27, 1873 at Vallejo it read in part,

“Being compelled by business to reside on the sea coast, which does not agree with me, I make this will…1st, I give to my faithful and beloved wife, Sarah Howard Furber, all of our homestead in Siskiyou County, all of my interest in the Scholes Quartz Ledge in said county, and all of the rights, patents, and materials of the two proprietary medicines, Dr. Furber’s Cordial of Mountain Balm and the Troches. 2nd, I appoint my wife Sole Executrix of this will and commit the care of the children and their interests to her with the utmost confidence.” Done at Vallejo, Solano Co., Cal. Witnesses, A.J. McPike, Edward Welsh.

Four months later, as evidenced by letters now lodged at the Cloverdale Historical Society and addressed “Doctor Furber, Cloverdale,” the doctor was living in that northern Sonoma County town. Another document, one that purports to have been transcribed from Furber’s dictation on May 13, 1874, greatly contradicts his earlier will: “I, George Campbell Furber, now in the town of Cloverdale as a practicing physician and surgeon, and in good health…say that in case of my decease, I revoke my former will and give to James F. Hoadley the patents of the Mountain Balm and the Trade Mark thereof.”[10]

Charles Langley & Co., a wholesale drug firm in San Francisco, was now handling Furber’s medicines on consignment under the account name Hoadley & Furber, a partnership apparently formed to facilitate the transfer of the business. The “second will” outlined details of the transfer: Hoadley would continue the medicine business and set aside half the profits for Furber’s son William until he turned 21 in 1881 and for daughters Sadie, Georgiana, and Annetta until they reached age 18. These very optimistic provisions, however, became a non sequitur when a Santa Rosa newspaper reported on July 2, 1874, “G.C. Furber has sold to Jas. F. Hoadley, Cordial of Mountain Balm and Oregon Grape, etc., and letters patent for $150.” The meticulously outlined inheritance had degenerated into a fire sale.[11]

Six days later, the Petaluma Argus, quoting a report from Cloverdale, announced that George Campbell Furber had died on July 5, 1874, at age 56:

“A singular death occurred here on Sunday. Dr. G. C. Furber had been drinking considerable of late, and for a few days prior to this death complained of heart disease. On Saturday night he wrote a note stating he had another attack, and if it repeated itself he would die. He addressed the note to J. F. Hoadley, bidding him good-bye, and in the morning he was found dead in his bed. A jury was impaneled, and an inquest was held, resulting in a verdict of “death from heart disease.”

His body was taken to Vallejo for burial, probably because Sarah and the children were still living there; but it is likely they remained there just long enough to prove the original will. Although James Hoadley contested the May 1873 will, declaring the one written to his advantage a year later replaced it and made him sole executor, the court recognized only his rights to the Cordial and Troches, and his other claims were rejected. Newspaper advertising five years later indicates Hoadley was operating a “manufactory on the mountains at Cloverdale” and recommending Dr. Furber’s Cordial as a replacement for “the various preparations of sarsaparilla—richer in quality and more efficient as a restorer of good blood.”[12, 13]

Epilogue

The elephant in the Beehive, however, was Furber’s problem with alcohol. The candid comment in Furber’s death notice, “Dr. G.C. Furber had been drinking considerable of late,” suggests his alcohol abuse was known to the community and probably was long standing. In retrospect, hints of irresponsible, suspicious, and even paranoid behavior during the last year or two of

his life are now recognized:

On March 20, 1873 Furber was fined $5 for littering a sidewalk in San Francisco—a civic violation that could range from dumping trash to distributing handbills to defecation. Six months later, Furber abandoned his family, making a solo move to Cloverdale. In November 1873 an old acquaintance, John Littlejohns in Rough and Ready wrote to him, “I am glad you are in good health again, also that your practice is increasing against all the wishes and designs of your enemies…that you will become victorious over all your enemies…and finally have a few quiet and peaceable years such as you desire before you die.” Victorious over enemies? Paranoia and alcohol addiction often co-exist. The sudden move to Cloverdale, the May 1874 “second will,” and the sale of rights to the Cordial for a desperately low amount (ostensibly without the family’s knowledge) disclose a pattern of irrationality.

As a father he must have had persevering faith in the product if he wanted his son to take over the business when he reached his majority. It bolsters the idea that he had actual faith in the medicine, but was severely hampered by his alcohol addiction. It wasn’t so much the failure of a well-advertised therapeutic agent as it was his ability to run the business in a responsible and profitable manner. Most so-called patent medicines were largely unproven and were promoted shamelessly, and if they somehow became successful, it was due to the ingenuity of the proprietor. Furber apparently went into the enterprise with sincerity and intelligence but succumbed to the perils of alcoholism. His failure became the product’s failure.

The alcohol used to make the Cordial deserves some attention. It would have been approximately 85% ethyl alcohol, non-aged, and when utilized as described in the patent, the net strength of the medicine would be about 40%, classified pharmaceutically as a tincture. Furber would normally prefer aged whiskey or brandy for imbibing, but the cheap alternative was always available, easily cut to 80 proof (bathtub gin) or used to spike wine, beer or cider. His principal and most economical source for alcohol would be a local distillery. A less convenient and more expensive option was a shipment from a wholesale druggist or liquor dealer in San Francisco, Sacramento or Portland.

Looking back a few years, we see a serious and worthy defiance of his addiction, an attempt to rehabilitate. Furber and members of his family became actively involved with the temperance movement in Rough and Ready, to the extent of hosting meetings in their own home. This strongly indicates he acknowledged his problem and, with support from his family, was trying to overcome it.

A chapter of the national organization Sons of Temperance was chartered as the Mount Etna Division on January 27, 1870. The original group consisted of 16 men and women, including Sarah, George, and Charles. It first met in the old school house, but the upper floor of Furber’s large dwelling was made available that summer. The “S of T” brotherhood started in New York City in 1842; and at an annual session in 1866, women were admitted to full membership. A bylaw required visitation to any sick brother at least once a day; if a brother died, the organization paid thirty

dollars to cover burial costs, thus providing life insurance. Fifteen dollars was contributed for the funeral costs of a member’s dead wife.

Even after George Furber’s death, Sarah and other family members persisted in temperance work in Etna (Rough and Ready was finally renamed in 1874), all holding office in the local chapter at one time or another. In September 1881, Sarah sold the Beehive and left Etna with daughters Georgie and Annie to live in Milton, Indiana. Before leaving, she transferred the remains of daughter Florence from Yreka for burial alongside siblings Charles and Sadie at the Etna Cemetery. The other two children had died earlier that year—young Sarah (Sadie) in February from pneumonia at age 17 and Charles, age 28, from an infection secondary to a broken forearm he sustained after falling down a flight of stairs.

By June 1900, Sarah had returned to California and was living with her son William in Napa. She was also the current wife of George Furber’s brother, William G. Furber—an arrangement seen in the pre-social welfare era (and other cultures) to provide economic security.

Sarah Howard Furber died December 17, 1918, in San Francisco at age 86. She is buried in Etna Cemetery with three of her children and a mysterious individual named “Henry.” If not a Furber, he could be Henry Willard Dikeman, a painter and plasterer who lived with the Furbers in Rough and Ready in the early 1870s and is believed to have helped George build the new family dwelling. He was born in Pennsylvania in 1840 and is known to have suffered from malaria.

[Fig. 14] Furber cobblestone monument, Etna, California cemetery.

The family plot [Figs. 14 & 15] is marked by a five-foot-tall memorial inscribed:

In memory of SARAH H. FURBER

1832–1918

HENRY

FLORENCE M. SADIE AND CHARLES A. FURBER

The first white boy born In Siskiyou.

NOTES

1. Books by George C. Furber:

The Twelve Months Volunteer or Journal of a Private in the Tennessee Regiment of Cavalry in the Campaign in Mexico 1846-7, published 1849. The title page states, “Correct engravings from drawings by the author.” The 23 wood engravings were created by George Kellogg Stillman (1821-91) of Cincinnati.

History of Mexico: Continued from the Capture of Vera Cruz to the Termination of the War with the United States in 1848.

Camp Stories, Incidents in the life of a Soldier. 1849. Republished as Ike McCandliss and other Stories, 1852.

2. The story of the naming of Florence appeared in several newspapers as early as October 1870, but poet Joaquin Miller describes it best with his romantic style in Memorie and Rime, published in 1884: “Look at your map, tracing up from Lewiston over Craig’s Mountain and Camas Prairie, and you will find “Millersburg,” looking as big on the map as any town in the West. Yet it did not live even the winter through. A man soon came with a family of daughters, Dr. Furber, an author of some note at the time, and settled a half mile farther on. My city went with and clustered about the ladies. The doctor named the rival city after his eldest daughter, Florence. It flourished in the falling snow, and was at one time the capital of the territory. There is little of it left now, however, but the populous graveyard.” Although the “family of daughters” had not arrived yet, Miller was correct that Florence, age 5 in the fall of 1861, was the oldest daughter born to George and Sarah Furber, even though adopted Omelia, age 16 was truly the eldest. Idaho became a U.S. territory on March 3, 1863, and a state in 1890.

Today, the site of Florence sits in a remote section of the Nez Perce-Clearwater National Forests. Like the gold rush town bearing her name, Florence Furber suffered an early demise, passing away in 1864.

3. Because of the confusion, the U.S. Post Office at Siskiyou County’s Rough and Ready changed its name to Etna Mills in 1861; but the town’s more colorful name persisted in common use until 1874 when it was renamed Etna.

4. Richard Hayes McDonald sold his business in San Francisco in mid-1871 to devote his full attention to promoting a proprietary medicine nationwide, Dr. J. Walker’s California Vinegar Bitters.

It seems reasonable that the real instigators in producing regional proprietary medicines like Furber’s were the large wholesale druggists in San Francisco such as R. H. McDonald & Co., Crane & Brigham, Charles Langley & Co. and Redington, Hostetter & Co.

Capitalizing on a formula developed by a physician or pharmacist, the large drug firms were in a position to direct the order of custom embossed bottles from local glassworks and to provide not only the raw materials for manufacturing a nostrum, but also labeling, cartons, advertising artwork, shipping crates, and most importantly, a distribution network. Bulk manufacture and retail packaging often took place at the originator’s workplace, like with Furber, and shipping of finished packages to the wholesale house was also his responsibility. He then gambled that retail sales resulting from his own selling efforts, plus the percentage earned from wholesale marketing, made it all worthwhile. With most up-front costs billed to the “inventor,” much of the satisfaction would have to come from pride in his creation. Suppose the product did achieve popularity and repeat demand. In that case, the wholesaler might be tempted to buy the rights and take over the business, for example, in point, R. H. McDonald and his takeover of Walker’s Vinegar Bitters.

[Fig. 15] Inscribed marble tablet attached to Furber monument, Etna, California.

5. Mountain Balm (Eriodictyon californicum), also known as Yerba Santa (sacred herb), bear’s weed, and consumptive’s weed, is native to California and Oregon, growing in chaparral and coast redwood forests. It is an evergreen aromatic shrub with slender, leathery leaves often covered with shiny resin. Flowers are bell-shaped, white to purplish. The Chumash people used a poultice of leaves for wounds, insect bites and sores. Known for 150 years to be effective in masking the bitterness of quinine, the principles in Eriodictyon responsible for this property have been identified as the flavonoids eriodictyol, homoeriodictyol and sterubin. More recently, these derivatives have been found to have wide-ranging roles in combating disease.

Oregon-grape (Mahonia aquifolium), not related to true grapes (Vitis vinifera), gets its common name from the clusters of dusted, purple berries. It is also known as Holly-leaved barberry (aquifolium denotes “sharp-leafed,” as in spined holly leaves) and is native to western North America. The berries are quite tart with large seeds but are edible raw after the first frost and are used for food by some Pacific Northwest indigenous peoples. The root bark contains the alkaloid berberine and another substance, methoxyhydnocarpin, which together have synergistic antimicrobial properties. In 1899, Oregon-grape was recognized as the state flower of Oregon.

6. The book Ecclesiasticus appeared in the Septuagint, a circa 250 BC Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible (Old Testament), and was accepted in the Roman Catholic canon by the Council of Trent in 1546, but later rejected as apocryphal (doubtful authenticity) by the Jewish and Protestant faiths. Furber’s trademark was the second registration granted by the U.S. Patent Office for a medicine made by a California proprietor. The first was for Yerba Santa, also based on the botanical Eriodictyon californicum, registered on November 22, 1870, to Arthur McDermott of Oroville and Redington, Hostetter & Co. of San Francisco. The trademark registration explicitly refers to its use in the embossing on their bottles. The medicine was promoted for several years as The Great Blood Purifier.

7. Three months before the Great Chicago Fire of 1871 killed some 300 people, Yreka suffered its own conflagration on July 4. First noticed at 3:45 pm, five blocks were burning within the next ten minutes, and in the span of one hour, 15 blocks were in ruins—south from Miner to below Butte St., and east from Fourth to the creek. The holocaust destroyed Chinatown, numerous stores and shops, the Odd Fellows Hall, the Union Hotel, a soda factory, the Metropolitan School, the post office, four livery stables, the Catholic church, and the sisters academy. Everyone worked to suppress the flames by carrying water, ripping down fences, and piling on wet blankets. All the water stored in local cisterns was pumped out by the two steam fire engines. No human life was reported lost; total property loss was estimated at $250,000.

8. The authors have endeavored to come to some conclusion about how many embossed bottles Furber might have ordered from the glassworks in San Francisco for his Cordial. Such a calculation would require knowledge about 1) what constituted a minimum order of embossed bottles of similar purpose, shape and size, blown from standard “green glass” in 1870, and 2) an

estimate of Furber’s volume of sales. Unfortunately, we came to no conclusion on either point, not even in general terms, but not for the sake of trying. Some suggestions of the number of bottles left in his estate are presented in Note 11 below. The only other glimmer in this dark area of history is a Fresno news item regarding a similar local preparation, Burks Lightning Liniment, which states the proprietor’s initial order of embossed bottles from the San Francisco & Pacific Glass Works in 1879 numbered three gross (432).

9. Asbury, Herbert. The Barbary Coast. Garden City, NY, 1933:258.

10. James Francis Hoadley (1831-91) arrived in California in 1853 via overland from Vermont, tried farming, milling and the lumber business at Lewiston in Trinity County 1860-1870, and by 1874 was a commission merchant in Cloverdale.

11. An accounting of Furber’s estate included $3,000 worth of bottles on hand in Cloverdale. This could be interpreted as approximately 2,000 filled bottles (retail price was normally $1.50 each) or as many as 6,000 empty bottles. Another accounting showed a medicine stock/bottles valuation of $500/$300, possibly an inventory conducted for bankruptcy or probate by James Hoadley. The takeaway is that the product was being bottled by Furber at Cloverdale. In some instances, a wholesale druggist manufactures and distributes a proprietary article, remitting a percentage of profits based on actual sales to the proprietor. Furber’s initial arrangement was with R.H. McDonald & Co. in San Francisco, but at some point, sales lagged. By September 1873, Furber was in Cloverdale with his bottles and botanicals, in league with Cloverdale merchant and newspaper editor James F. Hoadley, attempting to salvage the business.

12. Because of the two dyes used in its formulation, cochineal and red saunders, the Cordial would have possessed an intense red coloration. In the patent medicine business every angle was exploited, and Furber’s creation of a red liquid to restore blood health would have been the appropriate illusion. Ridiculous you say? Geritol Tonic was introduced in 1950 as a remedy for tiredness due to “iron poor blood” and quickly became a product leader. Its package color, then and now—a bright red.

13. Cloverdale News, 1879: February 8-May 24. Hoadley included the open-bible trademark he purchased from Furber in his advertising. He also revived verbiage that had not been used since 1871, claiming that the Cordial was superior to a well-established class of proprietary medicines, sarsaparilla-based blood purifiers. Hoadley was editor and owner of the Cloverdale News, and besides promoting Dr. Furber’s Cordial in his columns five years after he acquired proprietorship, he was also attempting to sell 200 dozen bottles of Dr. E. Champlain’s Ligneous Extract, a “No Humbug sure cure for Dyspepsia” created in 1872 by a Cloverdale blacksmith who also died in 1874, six months before Furber. A hundred years later, to the delight of local bottle collectors, several unopened, labeled and wrapped bottles of Champlain’s Extract were found in a Cloverdale attic.

Sunset AuctionBayou City

SATURDAY EVENING 03 AUGUST 2024 HOTEL ZAZA

Brought to you by Crow ded House Auctions and the FOHBC

Featuring rare antique bottles, glass, insulators, ephemera and advertising. Online auction starts Friday, 25 July 2024. Live auction starts at 7:00 pm on Saturday, 03 August 2024. Event at Hotel ZaZa, Grapevine room. Cash bar and hors d’oeuvres in the adjacent Room with a View cocktail party at 6:00 pm.

LOOKING FOR QUALITY CONSIGNMENTS

ACL, Advertising, Ephemera, Insulators, Jars Medicines, Signs, Sodas, Texas and just plain fun objects.

HOUSTON 24 OVERVIEW SCHEDULE

Wednesday

Morning•31 July 2024

Peachridge Glass “Glass in the Grass” antique bottle, glass and small antiques field sales from vehicles and tents. Catered. 7:00 am to 1:00 pm, Ferdinand & Elizabeth Meyer, Brookshire, Texas

Thursday•01 August 2024

FOHBC Board Meeting: 8:00 to 11:30 am at Hotel ZaZa | Room with a View

Dealer Set-Up: Hotel ZaZa Phantom Ballroom and related rooms. 7:00 am to 5:00 pm

Display Set-Up: Hotel ZaZa Phantom Ballroom and related rooms. 7:00 am to 5:00 pm

Exhibition Opening (VIP): 1:00 pm Ribbon Cutting—”American Antique Glass Masterpieces featuring the Sandor P. Fuss Collection” and “Select Highlights from the David P. Wilber and Anthony Gugliotti Barber Bottle Collections” Houston Museum of Natural Science (HMNS) Brown and Hamill Galleries. Media access. Exhibition book sales and signing.

Expo Registration: 9:00 am to 6:00 pm. HMNS Alfred C. Glassell Hall. Exhibition book sales and Souvenir Programs.

HMNS Open House: 9:00 am to 6:00 pm For FOHBC Members, VIPs and Registered Guests. (Exhibits, Planetarium, Cockrell Butterfly Ctr, Hall of Paleontology, Cullen Hall of Gems & Minerals, etc.)

Museum District Tours: Planned tours of the Houston Museum of Fine Arts, Houston Zoo, Hermann Park, Bayou Bend Collection, Contemporary Arts Museum, Minute Maid Park, Rice University, etc.

Cocktail Reception|Competition Event Registration: 5:30 to 7:00 pm cash bar in Hotel ZaZa | Room with a View pre-function area of bottle competition in the Hotel ZaZa | Grapevine

Texas Hold ‘em Antique Bottle & Glass Competition: 7:00 to 9:00 pm (see above) Hotel ZaZa | Grapevine

Friday•02 August 2024

FOHBC Membership Breakfast Meeting: 7:00 to 8:30 am at Hotel ZaZa | Grapevine

Educational Seminars (Session 1): 9:00 am to Noon at Hotel ZaZa | Room with a View and Grapevine

WEDNESDAY–SUNDAY | 31 JULY THROUGH 04 AUGUST 2024

Friday continued

Exhibition Viewing: Early Admission, VIP exhibition viewing at the Houston Museum of Natural Science (HMNS) Brown and Hamill Galleries 9:00 am to 6:00 pm

Ribbon Cutting: Official opening of the FOHBC Houston 24 Antique Bottle & Glass Show & Sale at 12:50 pm Hotel ZaZa Exterior Entry Drive

Early and VIP Admission: FOHBC Houston 24 Antique Bottle and Glass Show & Sale. 1:00 to 5:00 pm Hotel ZaZa Phantom Ballroom & related rooms. Sales & Displays.

Youth Activities: Grab Bags, Scavenger Hunt, etc. during all FOHBC Houston 24 Antique Bottle and Glass Show & Sale hours Hotel ZaZa Piano Man Lounge

Virtual Museum Imaging: By appointment during all FOHBC Houston 24 Antique Bottle and Glass Show & Sale hours Hotel ZaZa Piano Man Lounge

Houston 24 Cocktail Mix & Mingle: Cocktails and mingling at the HMNS Morian Hall of Paleontology from 6:00 to 7:30 pm. Cash Bar.

FOHBC Dinosaurs Banquet: Prepaid banquet event with keynote speaker, presentation and awards at the HMNS Morian Hall of Paleontology from 7:30 to 10:00 pm.

Saturday•03 August 2024

Educational Seminars (Session 2): 10:00 am and 2:00 pm Hotel ZaZa | Grapevine

Exhibition Viewing: Open for all 9:00 am to 6:00 pm at HMNS Brown and Hamill Galleries

FOHBC Houston 24 Antique Bottle and Glass Show & Sale: $5 General Admission, 9:00 am to 5:00 pm Hotel ZaZa Main Floor Displays, Merchandise, Raffles

Virtual Museum Imaging: By appointment and walk-in during all FOHBC Houston 24 Antique Bottle and Glass Show & Sale hours at Hotel ZaZa | Piano Man Lounge from 9:00 am to 5:00 pm

Bayou City Sunset Auction: Crowded House Auctions. Live and Online Auction. 7:00 to 10:00 pm. Catered with cash bar. Hotel ZaZa | Grapevine

Sunday•04 August 2024

FOHBC Houston 24 Antique Bottle & Glass Show & Sale: $5 General Admission. Open for all 9:00 am to 3:00 pm Hotel ZaZa Phantom Ballroom and related rooms. Book sales and merchandise. Raffle drawings.

Exhibition Viewing: Open for all 9:00 am to 3:00 pm. HMNS Brown and Hamill Galleries

Virtual Museum Imaging: By appointment during all FOHBC Houston 24 Antique Bottle & Glass Show & Sale hours at Hotel ZaZa | Piano Man Lounge

Display Awards: FOHBC Houston 24 Antique Bottle & Glass Show & Sale Display Awards at 2:00 pm. at Hotel ZaZa | Piano Man Lounge

FOHBC Houston 24 Antique Bottle & Glass Show & Sale Close: 3:00 pm. Hotel ZaZa Phantom Ballroom and related rooms

All five bottles were manufactured and filled with their various mineral or spring waters in the late 1860s or early 1870s. One came all the way from California, one came from New York, and three were from Sheldon, Vermont

Basement Bottles

By: Greg Gifford

Much can be said about finding a bottle in “attic mint” condition. This story is about five “basement mint” bottles manufactured and filled with mineral or spring waters in the late 1860s or early 1870s. One came all the way from California, one came from New York, and three from Sheldon, Vermont. It is believed that they all found their way to a drugstore owned by William E. Krewson on the corner of N. 8th Street and Montgomery Avenue in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

William Krewson may have been the original purchaser of the bottles in the early 1870s to diversify his stock. Did these bottles of refreshing mineral water not sell because they were too expensive, or did Philadelphians prefer the products from Roussel, Johnston, McKinney, Heiss, Twitchell, and the many other Philadelphia merchants? In or about 1886, William Krewson sold his store on the corner of North 8th and Montgomery to William H. King. The bottles of mineral water may have ended up in the basement because they were over 15 years old. A few years later, in 1888, William King sold the store to Milton G. Briggs, who then sold the store to Harry E. Jones in 1890. Here’s where the story gets interesting.

Harry Jones opened a brand-new drugstore in 1899 at the corner of 32nd and Diamond Street, the Strawberry Mansion section of Philadelphia. Strawberry Mansion was a growing section of Philadelphia in the late 1800s, and a new drugstore was needed. Somehow, these 30+-year-old bottles ended up in Harry Jones’ brand-new drugstore. Jones operated

the drugstore for about 12 years before selling it to Harry B. Lupin in 1911. Harry Lupin merged his business and renamed the store The Lupin Ampoules Company Drugstore. These old bottles must have been hidden in the basement inventory and were never sold. Eventually, the drugstore was sold to Milton “Mickey” Lev. It is possible that the store sat empty for a few years until Lev’s Drugstore (as the locals called it) opened up.

The five unopened mineral water bottles found in the basement were sealed containing the original contents.

Research: Tod von Mechow

The Missisquoi Springs Bottles have most of the original wax that covered the corks and are all different colors, with the two bottles having different embossing of the Native American Squaw with Papoose.

Lev completely renovated the old drugstore in the 1940s, and the bottles were probably trapped in the basement behind renovation materials and items from the original drugstore. So, in the basement of Lev’s Drugstore, the full untouched bottles sat for another 30 years until Lev decided to close his pharmacy. Fate would save these bottles. A drug salesman named Harvey, who regularly did business with Lev’s Drugstore, stopped by the week before Lev closed his pharmacy. Lev was also selling the real estate, so they needed to clean the building thoroughly. He asked Harvey if he wanted any of the old pharmacy items that they discovered in the basement from the original drugstore when it opened in 1899. Harvey saw the five unopened old bottles and a few other items and asked if he could have them. Lev was happy to lighten the load.

The base-embossed mineral water from Carlsbad, California, was just sealed with a deep cork but traveled the farthest without a metal bail or wax coating.

Beautiful olive-green “Excelsior Spring Saratoga. N.Y.” mineral water bottle with contents.

Harvey recalled that the old labels were falling off the bottles, so he left them behind. If only Harvey would have kept the labels. Harvey eventually got rid of many items rescued that day and other pharmacy collectibles but kept the bottles in his basement on a shelf for over 40 years. In approximately 2012, I learned that Harvey wanted to sell his old bottles. The full bottles weighed three to four pounds each, so he decided to find someone local who would enjoy the bottles he proudly displayed in his basement for so many years. After speaking with Harvey, I was at Harvey’s home within an hour of hanging up the phone.

When I arrived at Harvey’s home, I couldn’t believe what I saw—five bottles over 150 years old with their original corks,

The Excelsior Spring bottle from Saratoga, New York still has some of the original material that covered the cork, and wire bail is tight as a drum.

wax coverings, metal bands, and the original mineral water inside. Harvey knew these heavy bottles, filled with mineral water, needed to find a new home. I am happy they now reside in my “Bottle Room” in my basement. I often tilt the bottles to keep the corks wet and slow any evaporation of their 150+-year-old contents. As Tod von Mechow, the primary researcher for this story, said, “These bottles have really traveled!” So, as I said at the beginning of the story, “Basement Mint” might even be a little better than “Attic Mint” because the basement kept the corks and wax moist and protected the precious mineral water.

The photos show all five bottles in their full glory, and one image is of two drugstore bottles from the son of the original Druggist who purchased these fine bottles over 150 years ago. As you can see from the photographs, the mineral water is as clear and pure as the day it was poured into the bottles. The Missisquoi Springs bottles have most of the original wax that covered the corks and are all different colors, with the two bottles having different embossing of the Native American Squaw with Papoose.

The Excelsior Spring bottle from Saratoga, New York, still has some original material covering the cork, and the wire bail is as tight as a drum. Interestingly, the mineral water from Carlsbad, California, was just sealed with a deep cork but traveled the farthest without a metal bail of wax coating. Maybe someday, these bottles will be opened, and someone can find out if they have the medicinal qualities they claimed!

Two “Wm. E. Krewson Jr. Pharmacist Philadelphia” drugstore bottles. Note the different street addresses.

cock-a-doodle-doo!

A N N U A L

FOHBC

General Membership Breakfast Meeting

Friday morning, 02 August 2024 Hotel ZaZa Museum District, Grapevine room. 7:30 to 8:30 am. You can arrive at 7:00 am for the Buffet.

The Houston 24 FOHBC General Membership Breakfast Meeting is scheduled for Friday 02 August 2024, from 7:00 to 8:30 am with the membership meeting starting at 7:30 am in the Hotel ZaZa Grapevine room on the 11th floor. Please join us for a buffet breakfast and our annual membership meeting. This event is specifically for current and paid-up FOHBC members only and will be at no cost to FOHBC member and associate members. Donations accepted! We encourage you to come and be part of the FOHBC by participating in this event, our once-a-year General Membership Meeting. Get the latest news on the Federation, the Virtual Museum and our hobby. There will also be a bylaw revision vote and FOHBC 2024-2026 officers ratification vote. You will be able to join the FOHBC, or renew membership prior to the breakfast.

Hosted by FOHBC president Michael Seeliger.

Where do they get all these old bottles?

By Don Fritschel

“Where do they get all these old bottles?” The most outlandish answer to that question I have ever heard occurred right in front of my sales tables at the Las Vegas bottle show. A well-dressed man and his wife, obviously not bottle collectors, wandered into the showroom and casually viewed the hundreds of bottles for sale. The woman looked at her husband and repeated the question. The man lowered his voice and replied, “Don’t you know? The government gives them the bottles so they don’t have to go on welfare.” He was dead serious, and his wife’s expression had changed to “Now that makes sense.” Fortunately, they moved on before I said something I would regret.

But the question made me think about all the sources for antique bottles, such as digging, dealers, auctions, shows, etc. And then, I began to think of where and when I got some of the premier bottles in my collection. Some of them have stories to tell.

How many collectors know the exact date they fell in love with bottle collecting? I do. It was a Sunday, Mother’s Day 1974. My wife and I, along with two young children, were part of a group of Vermont’s townspeople who had permission to enter a military-restricted area once a year to “verify” the intersection of three townships. That morning, about 15 high-clearance vehicles drove through the gate and eventually found a cement obelisk in a densely wooded area on the side of a small mountain. It was promptly painted, and a party atmosphere prevailed for the next hour. Later, on our return trip to the gate, the caravan stopped beside a rock-lined cellar hole with century-old trees growing out of it. Several of our neighbors jumped into the hole and began furiously digging with shovels and rakes. I thought it was the funniest thing I had ever seen and began taking pictures of the scene. And then, one of the diggers held up an old bottle, embossed “Jericho Drugstore Jericho, Vt.” There was no drugstore in the nearby village of Jericho, but the town historian, who was part of our group, explained that the drugstore had burned down in 1906 and was never rebuilt.

Nay had been a pharmacist in Underhill, about three miles from where we stood. Someone offered that Dr. Nay had written the 1937 Vermont classic, “The Old Country Doctor,” which described growing up in this area during the early 1900s. A realtor in the group then quietly spoke up, “I was the last baby that Dr. Nay delivered.” I was stunned. Wow! History from the ground. We were hooked and spent every weekend for the rest of the summer digging bottles. And when we dug shards of historical flasks, the excitement only increased.

Then, another bottle appeared. It was embossed “Dr. W. S. Nay Underhill, Vt.” [Fig: 1] Our historian friend explained that Dr.

Soon, the digging stories began to emerge. One of my favorites involved three diggers who raked through the excavations each evening at the site of Burlington’s future underground shopping mall. One evening, a worker from the job offered the three diggers a bottle he had uncovered with his bulldozer that day. It

[Fig: 1] “Dr. W. S. Nay Druggist Underhill, Vt.” clear drugstore bottle.

[Fig: 2] “Smith’s Green Mountain Renovator East Georgia, Vt.” medicine bottle. Courtesy FOHBC Virtual Museum.

was olive-amber, pontil marked and embossed: “Smith’s Green Mountain Renovator East Georgia, Vt.” [Fig: 2] They offered to buy it from him, but he didn’t want money; he wanted a jug of cherry brandy. No one had more than pocket change, but when they pooled several handfuls of change, the man said, “That looks about enough,” and he walked off with a pocket full of coins. The three friends stared at the bottle and finally agreed to do the only fair thing they could think of. One of them took the bottle home, the flip of a coin winner!

My business travels took me to several towns that had actual bottle shops. One of my favorites was Jim’s Bottle Shop in Ardsley, New York, near White Plains. Jim Whetzel’s shop always contained a very nice assortment of affordable bottles, and I always left with one or two nice examples. It was Jim who gave me the wise advice, “Always buy the best examples that you can afford.” I listened to him, as my collection has several gorgeous, sapphire blue, open pontiled umbrella inks and a selection of colored Harrison’s that had once resided in his shop.

Another mentor was Buzzy Owens from Rutland, Vermont. Since my wife and I had a weakness for Saratoga-type mineral water bottles, Buzzy recommended that we collect Saratogas from Vermont since there were far fewer to collect than the many embossings from New York. And you may be able to collect all the variants. Buzzy had taken a full year off from work to dig bottles throughout New England. He knew his bottles! He told us about the elusive “Campbell Mineral Spring Co. Burlington, Vt” bottle, the only aqua one from the Green Mountain state. A total of ten had been found, and he knew the location of each and every one of them. He owned two of them, one of which I was eventually able to buy from him.

During those early collecting days, my job occasionally took me to Binghamton, New York. Rather than fly through the chaos of the New York City airports, I opted to fly to Syracuse and drive the 70 miles to Binghamton. I would always arrange my travels to allow time to visit Terry McMurray in Kirkwood. In addition to his collection of drugstore, apothecary, and country store collectibles, Terry always had a nice assortment of items for sale, and I always found four or five bottles to buy. When it was time to leave, Terry was always amused when I brought in my carry-on suitcase and dropped my purchases into (clean) socks for continued travel. Twenty-seven years later, Terry is still in business, known for his internet auctions of the same fine

merchandise. Contact Terry for his auction schedule or visit his website for his Drugstore Museum photographs. [Fig: 3]

Several of the premier items in my collection came from various country auctions; the kind held outdoors or maybe in a barn or under a tent. At one auction, an attractive stenciled shipping crate hit the auction block. The stenciling told that it had held bottles from Alburgh Springs, Vermont. [Fig: 4] This was the first time I had seen a shipping crate from a Vermont spring, much less one as scarce as Alburgh Springs. Another bidder tenaciously battled me for it, but eventually, my bid topped his. The crate was mine, and it was the size that could only accommodate 18 Saratoga-type pints. Alburgh Springs was the only spring from Vermont that shipped in pint-size bottles. After the auction, the underbidder for the crate asked me if I had been bidding on the crate or its contents—old sewing machine parts. When I told him I wanted the crate, he offered me 50% of my winning bid in exchange for the contents. Now, that was a winwin! And I have never seen another Alburgh Springs crate!

Another country auction advertised old bottles, but the bottles turned out to be quite common. All except one. It was a case gin shape, deep emerald green, with an iron pontil mark. It was strongly embossed, “Dr. Guysott’s Compound Extract of Yellow

[Fig: 3] Entrance to Terry McMurray Drugstore Museum. Courtesy Terry McMurray website.

[Fig: 5] “Dr. Guysott’s Compound Extract of Yellow Dock and Sarsaparilla” bottle. Courtesy FOHBC Virtual Museum.

[Fig: 4] Example of an “Alburgh Springs, Vt” bottle. Courtesy Glass Works Auctions.

Dock and Sarsaparilla.” [Fig: 5] I had no idea its value then, but I knew it must be good based on its early features. It had a small lip chip, which I felt could be repaired. I won the bottle and sent it to Don Spangler, the old master, who did such a good repair that a black light was required to find it. It turned out to be one of the highlights of my collection and a good example of “follow your instinct.”

One name that is not well known outside of New England is that of Peter Mallett. Peter collected bottles from Franklin County, Vermont. These include several early, pontiled medicines and rarities such as the super scarce Saratoga-type, “Central Spring Green & Co. Sheldon, Vt.” [Fig: 6] Peter was considered a leading authority on the previously noted “Smith’s Green Mountain Renovator.”

It turns out that this product was bottled in the mid-1800s, just three miles from his home. In 2004, Peter self-published a 179-page book, “Smith’s Green Mountain Renovator and the St. Albans Remedy Company.” It was a work of love, and I was honored when he asked me to write the foreword for his book.

Peter owned a “Central Spring” bottle and knew how badly I wanted one for my collection. He promised me the right of first refusal if he should ever decide to part with it. That took 24 years to happen. One day, out of the blue, Peter called me and said he had an opportunity to buy a huge folio of Audubon prints, one of his passions. However, it would require a three-way trade, which included the Central Spring bottle. When the horse-trading ended, I finally had the elusive bottle I had pursued for years.

One sidebar involving Peter: He didn’t do email, so his communication was by phone or by letter. A few Christmases ago, his hand-written holiday greeting mentioned that he had spent 1943-1944 in Pando, Colorado, just over a two-hour drive from where I now live. I was jolted to the core. Pando was an area on Tennessee Pass, not far from Vail, Colorado, where the now-extinct Camp Hale was located during World War II. At its peak, Camp Hale’s 15,000 soldiers were trained in the nearby mountains for winter warfare. The 10th Mountain Division is still legendary in the annals of the war and Colorado. After receiving his note, I picked up the phone, called him, and said, “Peter, I’ve known you for over 50 years and never knew you were in the 10th Mountain Division.” He replied, “No. I wasn’t in the 10th Mountain. I taught the 10th Mountain troops how to ski!”

Sometimes bottles came to me, in my home. How many of you remember Dave Goad, the “Traveling Bottle Man”? Dave would

appear in the driveway in his camper truck, spend the evening swapping and selling bottles, and then disappear in the morning. He often carried some “heavy” bottles in his travels.

Occasionally, I bid in mail-bid catalog auctions and later in internet auctions. Most of the bottles I desired sold well above my financial reach. However, I remember a GX-27 “Stoddard flag” flask, olive-amber, with an open pontil, that I won in a Harmer-Rooke New York City mail bid auction [Fig: 7]. Somehow, it slipped by at a bid price I could afford, and it was one of the highlights of my collection for many years.

One of the truly delightful things about this hobby is visiting other collectors and viewing their collections. I was very fortunate to view some of the great collections like Bob Mebane’s when he owned the gallon-size, cobalt blue “Harrison’s Columbian Ink.” [Fig: 8] And Sam Greer’s collection when it was on display in his office. And Charlie Gardner’s while his assortment of flasks was still intact. And Warren Haynes, Arthur Burris, Crawford Wetlaufer and Bill Agee. And don’t forget the young kid down the block who is just starting to collect bottles but can tell you where every single one of his treasures came from. Hey, seventy years ago, that could have been me!

So, where did the bottles in your collection come from? What stories can they tell? Help the couple visiting the bottle show with their question: “Where do they get all these old bottles?”

[Fig: 6] “Central Spring Green & Co. Sheldon Vt” mineral water bottle.

[Fig: 7] GX-27 Stoddard Flag flask. Courtesy FOHBC Virtual Museum.

[Fig: 8] “Harrison’s Columbian Ink” courtesy FOHBC H24 American Antique Glass Masterpieces exhibition.

Collecting regrets?

It’s not too late.

Then again, my friend, I’ll say it clear: For some of us, it is.

Confessions by Ralph Finch

“And now the end is near And so I face the final curtain My friend, I’ll say it clear… I’ve lived a life that’s full Regrets, I’ve had a few...”

I’m no Frank Sinatra; in fact, I even refuse to sing in the shower, a place, I once read, makes everyone sound good. (It’s a lie.)

Decades ago, I even stopped humming along in church, fearing that if there is a god, I might suddenly be struck dead by lightning. (It didn’t happen, so— A: there is no god, or, B: if so, indeed, she is very forgiving.)

Does anyone know if Sinatra collected (other than women and money)?

I collect a ton of stuff. The Finch Funhouse is bursting at the seams. (We often paraphrase that famous movie line, we’re “gonna need a bigger boat,” changing it to: We’re gonna need a bigger condo.)

But I’m sure that all of us, collectors or not, as the end is near, we can think back and...OK, after decades of collecting, seeing tens of thousands of items, and even having acquired a lot of it, is there something you’d like to change?

I have many experiences and won’t confess to all of them if the statute of limitations has not run out on some. But collecting regrets? I’ve had a few. Fiftyplus years of collecting and I remember the regrets so well.

There was a time when I was a novice at my first bottle show (at the old armory in Jackson, Michigan, maybe 55 years ago). There were two matching, pontiled and embossed medicines for $400, more than I could imagine spending (then). I’ve never seen another like it since. If I ever do, at that price —or ten times more—I’d drop my cane and jump over the table to grab it.

Then there was the time I was at the two-day weekend antiques market on London’s Bermondsey Street. You had to take a bus across Tower Bridge and then walk a mile to get to it. One Friday I saw a porcelain image of a young child, and on the reverse an old piece of pasted paper revealing the child’s history. Back in my hotel room, I remained captivated; it was an image of the most beautiful child I had ever seen. But I don’t collect porcelain, images of children, whatever...Still, I took the bus the next day and walked the mile, but it had been sold.

And ketchup? I’m labeled (lampooned?) as the ketchup king, and in my collection of a ton of ketchup stuff, I have about 25 labeled/embossed ketchup crocks and jugs, and I firmly state that if you spend an unlimited amount of time and money, you’d have a hard time coming even close to matching mine. Yet, when I pass the shelves groaning under all those jugs, I, too, groan and think, “Why, oh why, didn’t I raise my bid one more time and get what would have become the best of all my ketchup jugs?

Dear reader: If you ever stop by and look around, you’ll understand that there are were few things I really liked that I didn’t glom on to. Still, regrets?

I’ve had a few. And if I get another life to live, things will be different. And we will get a bigger condo.

37th Annual Mid Hudson BOTTLE SHOW

Sponsored by the Hudson Valley Bottle Club Sun. Aug. 18th, 2024

9 am to 2:30 pm Poughkeepsie Elks Lodge 275 29 Overocker Rd.

Poughkeepsie, NY 12603

Bottles, Stoneware Advertising & Go withs

$2 Admission

$15 Early Admission at 8 am Air Conditioned - Food Available Free Appraisals & Bottle I.D. Directions: Just east of Poughkeepsie Between Rts. 44 & 45, off Burnett Blvd. across from NYS Dept. of Transportation

FOR DEALER CONTRACTS CONTACT MIKE STEPHANO 27 ROGERS ROAD, HYDE PARK, NY 12538 (845) 233-4340 or MJSAntique@aol.com

[Left] A miniature bronze alloy fitting bearing a portrait of Alexander the Great was discovered on an island in Denmark by a pair of metal detectorists who were conducting a survey. Alexander the Great succeeded his father as the king of Macedon and eventually created a far-flung empire before his death in Babylon in 323 B.C. at the age of 32. The one-inch round fitting, known as a bracket, shows an engraved image of a man with wavy hair wearing a crown made up of twisted ram horns, which are typical imagery of the ancient ruler. It has been dated to the early third century A.D., during the rule of the Roman emperor Caracalla (reigned A.D. 211–217), and its metal has a high lead content, similar to metal found in Roman bronze statuettes. This bracket may have decorated a Roman shield or a sword belt. – Archaeology

[Flanking] I was sent a link from Peachridge Glass about Cottons Star Bitters from Nashville, Tennessee. In the article it says there’s not a known example. I came across pieces of this bottle at a construction site in Nashville. It was smashed but I managed to grab as many pieces of it as I could and put them back together. The other panels are not embossed. – Eric Scruggs

[Above] My newest acquisition: A Coca-Cola-Coke bottle blow mould dated 1970s. Very rare. Weight: 14 kilos.

– Willy Van den Bossche

Trove of 700 Civil War-Era Gold Coins Discovered in Kentucky. An unidentified man found the cache, which may have been buried ahead of a Confederate invasion, in a cornfield earlier this year.

– Smithsonian Magazine

Antique Bottle & Glass Collector

[Above] “E. G. Patton & Co. Oak Cliff Dallas Texas” colored drug store bottle recently found in a driveway in a town near Dallas. – Houston 24 Sunset Auction

Lost & Found

Read and see more in the

[Left] Ariel-Foundation Park. Located in Mount Vernon, Ohio, the park is a stunning 250-acre example of adaptive reuse, created on the former site of a glass-making factory. It offers architectural ruins, lakes, observation tower, walking trails, steel sculptures, a museum, and connections to both the Kokosing Gap Trail and the Heart of Ohio Trail. The “River of Glass” pays homage to the park’s rich glassmaking heritage and particularly to PPG Works No. 11, which was one of the largest window glass manufacturing plants in the world. The “river” is filled with chunks of glass called “cullet,” and crushed glass. – Ferdinand Meyer V photograph

[Left] Fully labeled Missisquoi Mineral Water bottle. Bottled only at the spring in Sheldon, Vermont – Gary Antone

[Above] My name is Gordon and I am a long time bottle digger/collector and recently dug a miniature Schiedam bottle as seen in photo.

[Above] Topaz from Mason County, Texas. Crystal that was formerly displayed in the Texas State Capitol and sat on the governor’s desk in 1969 when the legislature adopted blue Texas topaz as the state gem. This specimen was found in 1904 and now resides in the Hamman Gem and Mineral Gallery in the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences at the University of Texas at Austin – GIA

[Bottom Left] An exquisite collection of glassware dating from the Roman period has been uncovered by INRAP archaeologists in the French city of Nîmes. Nîmes, known in antiquity as Nemausus, emerged as a Roman colony (Colonia Nemausus) during the 1st century BC. Recent excavations on the Rte de Beaucaire have revealed cremation pyres and secondary burials from the 2nd century BC to the 2nd century AD. There are several pyres, some built out of limestone rubble or terracotta tile stacks, others simply dug into the ground.

A total of 15 burials have been identified, a majority of which are cremation burials with several inhumation burials. Buried with the deceased are numerous high status grave goods, including strigils (a tool for the cleansing of the body before bathing), ornate glass vases, ceramics, a glass paste cup, lamps, and fragments of funerary monuments and amphorae.

The glass vases are relatively intact, which were deposited during feasting rituals known as the refrigerium, a commemorative meal held on the day of burial. The refrigerium was conducted by female priestesses and centered on the consumption of wine in glass vessels. – Heritage Daily

[Above] Centuries-old bottles of cherries unearthed at Mount Vernon. Archaeologist Nick Beard was gently pushing aside the hardened dirt in the basement of George Washington’s home at Mount Vernon, Va., last fall when he spotted the mouth of a glass bottle. Now, experts at Mount Vernon have announced that Beard and other archaeologists have discovered two intact bottles that still had, along with liquid, some of the cherries they contained when they were buried about 250 years ago. The area of the discovery was believed to have once been a storeroom, Beard said. “It actually smelled like cherry blossoms when we got to the bottom,” remarked Jason Boroughs, Mount Vernon’s principal archaeologist. The cherries were probably picked at Mount Vernon in the 1770s, perhaps before the Revolutionary War, and stored for the future. The bottles, imported from England, dated to the mid-1700s and were probably buried between 1758 and 1776, Boroughs said.

– Washington Post

NEW LOCATION

Sunday October 20, 2024

9:00 am to 2:00 pm

Owens Community College

Education & Wellness Center

3200 Bright Rd., Findlay, Ohio

Free Parking, Admission $5, Under 12 Free Hot Food & Beverages Available Bottles, Stoneware, Fruit Jars, Collectibles, Insulators, Advertising, Small Antiques, Free Appraisals, w/paid adm.

Info: finbotclub@gmail.com

Website: finbotclub.blogspot.com

Dealer Info: Fred Curtis 419-424-0486

Early Bird Adm. Sunday Only 7-9 am - $20

Non-Profit Club – Member FOHBC

Member Photos

A collection of spectacular and inspiring photographs from around the world and around the web. Please feel free to submit your images for consideration.

Read and see more in the

Houston 24 Expo

Josiah Jonson’s writing fluid, Japan London Tea Kettle ink. – Tony Moller

Wistarburgh Glasshouse Shards – Thomas Haunton

Pot lids – Jeff Kinsell

Large “Dr. C.W. Roback’s Stomach Bitters” – Jeff Burkhardt “Froggy”

Three spirits – Craig Cassetta

ACL Sodas – Mike Dickman

Member Photos

Houston and Galveston, Texas stoneware – Brandon DeWolfe

“Caswell Massey & Co. New York And Newport” – Brian Bingham

– Jeff Noordsy

Window arrangement – Jeff & Holly Noordsy

Something different – Dana Charlton

Two early snuffs – Jim Megura

Labeled Warner’s, Melbourne, London & France – Stephen Jackson

Classified Ads

ADVERTISE FOR FREE

Free advertising in each issue of Antique Bottle & Glass Collector (AB&GC). One free “WANTED” or “FOR SALE” ad in AB&GC per year each renewal. See page 72 for more info. DEALERS: Sell your bottles in the Antique Bottle & Glass Collector. Change the bottles each issue. Include your website in your ad to increase traffic to your site. Send all advertisement info to FOHBC Business Manager, Elizabeth Meyer, P.O. Box 1825, Brookshire, Texas 77423 or best, email to: fohbcmembers@gmail.com

FOR SALE

FOR SALE: 1) 14-inch-tall Cathedral pickle, medium forest green, six sided. Cathedral window design with four petals above. Rare color for this mold. $575. 2) Drake’s Plantation Bitters. Very light topaz ginger ale. $725. 3) U.S. Mail embossed eagle mail-box-shaped whiskey. Fluted neck whiskey. Large size. $85. 4) “Leon’s Sarsaparilla Belfast Me.” Unusual neck and lip. You’ll see 100 Dana Sarsaparilla’s before you see a Leon’s. $75. 5) Amber straight-sided coke. Giering Bottling Co. in slug plate. Youngstown, Ohio. Two lip chips. $200. 6) “J. Gahm” mug-base beer. Honey amber. $85. No buyers premium or taxes. Postage $15. Don, 978.994.2629. 01/01/25

FOR SALE: Quality bottles largely from the US, meticulously described and well-priced. Listings with images available on my High Desert Historic Bottle website at historicbottles.com. My email for contact noted on the website. Bill Lindsey, Chiloquin, Oregon. 11/26

FOR SALE: Bottles from the 1890s Pennsylvania barn near Gettysburg. All kinds, milk-soda-embossed quack, beer, liquor, large number of blue Ball fruit jars and whittled quart 1858 patent jars – interested? Please contact Betsy at eahower@outlook.com (07/08_24)

FOR SALE: Two aqua, Dr. Ordway’s labeled meds, one labeled “Pain Destroyer” and the other is a rare variant “Pain Killer.” Rolled lips, 12-sided, pontiled, about perfect. $160 for the pair. Clear, quart milk. Fluted neck, recessed, round, slug plate. Embossed with an Indian name, “Arshamomaque Dairy Farms, Greenport, L.I.” This is a Long Island item. $100. Another quart, clear, milk. “Church Farm, Salt Lake Dairy” $75. Jean Pouliot, 406.888.9092. If no answer, please leave message and return phone number. (07/08_24)

FOR SALE: (1) Old Sachems barrel, light

champagne color – $850 (2) “R&F Atmore” cathedral pickle, open pontil, small in the making 1/2 inch crack in a bubble – $275 (3) “Warners Safe Tonic” slug plate – $650 (4) “Dr. Keyser’s Blood Searcher, Pittsburgh,” copy cat of Lindseys – $185 (5) Coca-Cola store display bottle, 19 inches tall, clear, Dec. 25 1923 – $225 (6) “WM Hennessy Lynn Mass.” mug base beer. Olive ladies leg beer and Wagner Maltese Cross, Manchester, light yellow green, pair $150 (7) Mail Box Whiskey embossed eagles, fluted neck, nice large size – $95. Satisfaction or return. Don – 978.994.2629 (09/10_24)

WANTED

WANTED: Harley bottles of West Chester, Pa. and Philadelphia, Pa. The West Chester bottles (4) display either J. Harley, James Harley, Jas. Harley or E.M. Harley. The Phila. Bottles (4) display Edwd. Harley, Schul (Schuylkill) 4th & Market St., Philada. or E. Harley, 802 Market St. or E. Harley, West Market St. or Edw. Harley, 1838 Market St., Phila. Bob Harley, Phone 215.721.1107. Email: rwh220@Yahoo.com 11/24

WANTED: Colored Figural Bitters. Also other bitters that are unusually shaped or unusually colored, for their grouping! Mint specimens only please! Randolph Haumann, 10410 Gold Arrow Drive, Reno, Nevada 89521-5190 or cell 415.518.4124 (leave message) or email: hawkeye751@ outlook.com, Call Now! So you are not sorry...Later! 11/24

WANTED: Hobble skirt embossed Coca-Cola bottles: 1915s, 1923s, D-Patent’s 6 oz and 6 1/2 oz. Collector will buy or trade. Jim Georges, georges77@twcny.rr.com or 315.662.7729. 07/24

WANTED: Always looking for nice Western medicines, Henry Guillen 760.668.00171 (07/08_24)

WANTED: Hutchinson stoppers: paying $1.50 each for those I can use. Send them to Zang Wood, 1612 Camino Rio, Farmington, NM 87401. I will mail you a check and any bad stoppers, plus your postage cost to me. (07/08_24)

WANTED: Rare fruit jars. Like unusual colors, closures and pints. Jerry Ikeda, 916.424.7204, akeda.jerry@gmail.com (07/08_24)

WELCOME

We welcome the following new members to the FOHBC: David Anderson, Daniel Barletta, Edward John Bechinski, Richard Carney, Kevin DeWolfe, Richard E. Fernandez, Jennifer Frederiksen, Dave Geiner, Larry Golden, Bill J. Granger, Harold Hall, David Howard, Gordon Hubenet, Bill Hughes, Eva Jakab, Steven James, Bob Jaques, Rick Johnson, Dwayne Konvicka, Kenneth Cromer, Lauri Magee, Ronald Mackey, Jim Priestley, Darrell Purpera, Merle Rector, Roger Ribacoff, Michael Roland, Luis Saavedra, Linda Schooler, William Seeger, Ray Thomas, Jeff Treichler, Ron Vandee, Andrew Weber, Jeffery Woods.

VOLUNTEERS

The FOHBC is always looking for help and volunteer work for the many projects and initiatives of the organization.

58th ANNIVERSARY

•Antiques

•Old Bottles

•Glassware

•Collectibles

•Stoneware

CASTLE ROCK, COLORADO SEPTEMBER 14TH 2024 Views of Pikes Peak!

Early Bird Admisssion Sept. 14th at 8:00 am

$10

Sho-Biz Calendar of Shows

FOHBC Sho - Biz is published in the interest of the hobby. Federation-affiliated clubs are indicated in red. Information on upcoming collecting events is welcome, but space is limited. Please send at least three months in advance, including telephone number to: FOHBC Sho-Biz, c/o Business Manager: Elizabeth Meyer, P.O. Box 1825, Brookshire, Texas 77423; phone: 713.504.0628; email: fohbcmembers@gmail.com Show schedules are subject to change. Please call before traveling long distances. All listings published here will also be published on the FOHBC.org website.

FOHBC Member Clubs: Please request event insurance coverage at least two months before your event. Email fohbcmembers@gmail.com. Put “Show Insurance” in subject line.

6 & 7 July 2024 – Barnsley, S. Yorks, UK

Britain’s Biggest Show 32nd Summer National, Elsecar Heritage Centre, Wath Rd, Elsecar, Barnsley S74 8HJ, United Kingdom, Contact BBR Auctions, Tele: 01226 745156, sales@onlinebbr.com, onlinebbr.com

19-21 July 2024 – Tonopah, Nevada

Second Tonopah Nevada Rock & Bottle Show. 301 Brougher Ave., Tonopah, Nevada 89049. Cost of admission: $1. Early admission: $20. This event is Hosted by the Town of Tonopah. We are in search of vendors. If interested, please contact Chrissy Pope. Tourism & Events Coordinator, Town of Tonopah at 775.277.0804, Chrissy. townoftonopah@gmail.com

20 July 2024 – Pickens, South Carolina

The Carolinas–Georgia Bottle Show & Sale at The Market at the Mill, 225 Pumpkinville Hwy, Pickens, S.C. 29671, 9:00 am to 4:00 pm, Set-up 7:00 to 9:00 am. Show and dealer information Samuel Rhodes, 864.508-6518, samuelrhodes99@gmail.com

21 July 2024 – Rotterdam Junction, New York

Capital Region Antique Bottle Club Annual Show & Sale, This will be an outdoor vendor show. 9:00 am to 3:00 pm, at the Mabee Farm Historic Site, 1100 Main St., Rotterdam Junction N.Y., Contact: Adam Stoddard, 518.256.7663, acstoddard63@gmail. com or Jeff Ullman, 518.925.9787, jullman@nycap.rr.com, FOHBC Member Club

31 July 2024 – Brookshire, Texas

Houston 24 Peachridge Glass “Glass in the Grass” Sell antique bottles, glass, advertising and related antiques from the back of your vehicle or from under a self-provided tent at “Glass in the Grass.” $25 for “Sellers” with vehicles. Open to all antique bottle dealers even if you are not setting up at Hotel ZaZa. $25 gate fee for “Dealer” vehicles only. All guests free. Relax, mingle and wander under the many large pecan trees surrounding the hay field. First come-first choice in dealer location. The temperature on the lower Brazos River plains is typically pleasant during summer hours of the event. Breakfast catered. Please contact Ferdinand Meyer V, fmeyer@fmgdesign.com for information. FOHBC National Event

01 August to 04 August 2024 – Houston, Texas

FOHBC 2024 Houston National Antique Bottle & Glass

Exposition hosted by the Houston Museum of Natural Science and the Federation of Historical Bottle Collectors. Brought to you by Peachridge Collections LLC. Host Hotel: Hotel Zaza Museum District. Featuring American Antique Glass Masterpieces and the David P. Wilber and Anthony Gugliotti Collections. Antique Bottle and Glass Show & Sale at Hotel ZaZa. Visit FOHBC.org or contact Ferdinand Meyer V, fmeyer@fmgdesign.com for information. FOHBC National Event

10 August 2024 – Lincoln, Alabama

9th Annual Lincoln Bottle, Antique & Collectible Show, Lincoln Civic Center, 120 Jones Street, Lincoln, Alabama 35096, 9:00 am to 2:00 pm. Contact chairman Jake Smith, 256.267.0446, syl_

bottleguy@yahoo.com. Free public admission, $20 early admission Saturday 8:00 am till 9:00 am, Free appraisals. Info on Facebook.

18 August 2024 – Poughkeepsie, New York

Hudson Valley Bottle Club 37th Annual Mid Hudson Bottle Show & Sale, 9:00 am to 2:30 pm, early buyers 8:30 am, Poughkeepsie Elks Lodge 275, 29 Overocker Road, Poughkeepsie, New York, Contact Info: Mike Stephano, 27 Rogers Road, Hyde Park, New York 12538, 845.233.4340, mjsantique@aol.com, FOHBC Member Club

25 August 2024 – Davenport, Iowa

Quad Cities – Mississippi Valley Antique Bottle & Advertising Show, 9:00 am to 2:00 pm, at the Knights of Columbus Hall, 1111 West 35th St., Davenport, Iowa 52806. Cost of admission: $3, Early admission at 7:00 am – $15. Iowa Antique Bottleers, Info: Ashton Schultz, 230 11th Circle, Dewitt, Iowa 52742, 563.503.9084, schulzantiques@gmail.com, FOHBC Member Club

07 September 2024 – Seekonk, Massachusetts

The Little Rhody Bottle Club Tailgate Swap Meet, starts at 8:00 am and ends at 2:00 pm. There is no set up fee and no admission fee. Bring as many tables as you want. Buy, sell, trade and keep what you make. Show Address: Leonard’s Antiques, 600 Taunton Ave. (Rte #44) Seekonk, Mass., Contact Info: William Rose 508.880.4929, sierramadre@comcast.net, FOHBC Member Club

08 September 2024 – Pekin, Illinois

Pekin Bottle Collectors Assoc. 54th Antique Bottle Collectors Annual Show & Sale, 8:30 am to 3:00 pm, Admission $2, Free Appraisals, Moose Lodge, 2605 Broadway Street, Pekin, Illinois, Contact Info: Daryl Weseloh, 309.264.9268, darylweseloh@gmail. com, FOHBC Member Club

14 September 2024 – Castle Rock, Colorado

The 58th Anniversary Antique Bottle Collectors of Colorado Show, Douglas County Fairgrounds at Kirk Hall, 500 Fairgrounds Dr., Castle Rock, Colorado 80104. Early Bird Admission Sept. 13th at 8:00 am $10. General Admission: Saturday, 9:00 am to 3:00 pm, Free. More information: Fred Bjork, 719.310.8388, manfredbjork@ yahoo.com, antiquebottlecollectorsofcolorado.com, FOHBC Member Club

14 September 2024 – Lebanon, Indiana

Indianapolis Circle City Antique Bottle, Advertising and Antiques Show, Boone County Fairgrounds, 1300 E. 100 S, Lebanon, Indiana 46052, Set-up: 7:30 to 9:00 am, Show hours: 9:00 am to 2:00 pm, Admission – Free, (Early Admission–$20), Free appraisals on antique bottles and glass. For show Information contact: Martin Van Zant, 812.841.9495, 41 East Washington Street, Mooresville, Indiana 46158, mdvanzant@yahoo.com or “Balsam” Bill Granger 317.517.5895, 6915 S. 280 E., Lebanon, Indiana 46052, bgranger@iquest.net FOHBC Member Club

15 September 2024 – Depew, New York

The Greater Buffalo Bottle Collectors Association’s 25th

Annual Show & Sale, Polish Falcons Hall, 445 Columbia Avenue, Depew, New York 14043, General Admission $4: Sunday 9 am to 2 pm. Contact chairman Tom Karapantso, 716.487.9645, tomar@stny.

rr.com or Peter Jablonski, 716.440.7985, peterjablonski@roadrunner. com or Joe Guerra, 716.207.9948, jguerra3@roadrunner.com, gbbca. org, FOHBC Member Club

15 September 2024 – Chelmsford, Massachusetts

Merrimack Valley Antique Bottle Club’s 49th Annual Bottle Show & Sale, Chelmsford Elks Lodge, 300 Littleton Road, Chelmsford, Massachusetts 01824, 9:00 am to 1:00 pm, $4 admission, $20 early admission (8:00 am), Visit mvabc.org or contact: Kevin Cantrell, 978.551.6397, kmcantrell86@gmail.com, FOHBC Member Club

20-21 September 2024 – Aurora, Oregon Oregon Bottle Collectors Association Bottle, Antiques, Collectibles Show & Sale, Friday 12 noon to 5:00 pm. Dealer set-up and early bird admission $5. Saturday 9:00 am to 3:00 pm regular public admission by donation. American Legion Hall, 21510 Main Street N.E., Aurora, Oregon. Contact: Wayne Herring, show chairman, 503.864.2009 or Bill Bogynska, 503.657.1726, billbogy7@gmail.com, FOHBC Member Club

21 September 2024 – Santa Ana, California

The Los Angeles Historical Bottle Club’s Annual Antique Bottles, Fruit Jars, Insulators, Antiques & Collectibles Show & Sale, 10:00 am to 3:00 pm Free, Early Bird $15 at 8:00 am, Club Members All Day Entry, at the Santa Ana California Elks Lodge, 1751 South Lyon St., Santa Ana, California 92705. Free Admission, Info: Don Wippert, Tele: 818.610.9332; Email: donwippert1@gmail.com or Chuck Gildea, tele: 949.351.7620. FOHBC Member Club

21 September 2024 – Santa Rosa, California Northwestern Bottle Collectors’ Association’s 57th Annual Antique, Bottle & Collectible Show at the Santa Rosa Veterans Memorial Building, 1351 Maple Avenue, Santa Rosa, California 95404. General Admission: Saturday Noon to 4:00 pm, FREE, Saturday early admission 10:00 am to Noon, $10. For dealer and show information contact Jon Mathieu, 707.327.7286, ohfrenchy@att.net or John Burton, 707.523.1611, johncburton@msn.com, FOHBC Member Club

22 September 2024 – Topsham, Maine

The Mid-Maine Antique Bottle Club 4th Annual Show and Sale, Topsham Fairgrounds Exhibition Hall, Topsham, Maine, $2 General Admission, 9:00 am, $15 Early Buyers 8:00 am to 9:00 am. Contact Paul McClure, 207.832.1503, oldbottles@outlook.com, midmaineantiquebottleclub.com, FOHBC Member Club

28 September 2024 – Cleveland, Mississippi

3rd Annual Mississippi Delta Antique Bottle, Advertising and Collectable Show & Sale, Bolivar County Expo Building, 601 1st Street, Cleveland, Mississippi 38732, Saturday, 9:00 am to 4:00 pm, Free Admission. Early admission, Saturday, 7:00 am to 9:00 am, $15, Mississippi Antique Bottle, Advertising and Collectable Club, For details contact, Cheryl Comans, 1211 S. 5th Ave., Cleveland, Mississippi 38732, 601.218.3505, cherylcomans@gmail.com, John Yarbrough, 4139 Hwy 8, Cleveland, Mississippi, 662.721.7446, john@johnsigns.com, FOHBC Member Club

Sho-Biz Calendar of Shows

04 Oct. & 05 October 2024 – Williams, California Sacramento Valley Museum Antique Bottle Show, Bottles, Collectibles, Antiques, 1492 E St., Williams California, Friday, Oct 4th, Early admission $20, 10:00 am to 4:00 pm, Saturday Admission Free 10:00 am to 3:00 pm, Show chairs Cristy and Slim Edwards, closethegatefenceco@yahoo.com, 530.586.0717

05 October 2024 –Chesterfield, Virginia

The Richmond Area Bottle Collectors Assoc. presents the 52nd Richmond Antique Bottle and Collectibles Show and Sale; General Admission is $3, 9:00 am to 3:00 pm; Early Admission is $10 from 7:30 am, at the Chesterfield County Fairgrounds, 10300 Courthouse Road, Chesterfield, Virginia 23832. Info: Tony Townsend, 804.379-0902; RichBottleClub@comcast.net, FOHBC Member Club

12 October 2024 – Fayette, Alabama 11th Annual Fayette, Alabama Bottle Collectible Bottles & Antiques Show & Sell, Free admission to the public, Boy Scouts of America Scout Building, 100 3rd Avenue, Fayette Alabama 35555, Saturday 8:00 am till 3:00 pm, Set-up: Friday, October 11th from 3:00 pm to 6:00 pm and Saturday, October 12th from 6:00 am till 7:30 am, $15 per table. All table rental goes to local Boy Scouts. Limit 50 tables. Contact: Jeff Pendley, Chairman, 205.275.2650, JfPendley@aol.com

13 October 2024 – Keene, New Hampshire

The Yankee Bottle Club’s 55th Annual Keene Show & Sale, 9:00 am to 2:00 pm, early buyers 8 am, at Keene High School, 43 Arch Street, Keene, New Hampshire. Contact: Alan Rumrill, PO Box 803, Keene, NH 03431, 603.352.1895, Email: arumrill@hsccnh.org, Website: yankeebottleclub.org FOHBC Member Club

19 October 2024 – Macungie, Pennsylvania

Forks of the Delaware Bottle Collectors Association 49th Annual Bottle and Antique Show & Sale, Saturday, 9:00 am to 2:00 pm, $3 Admission, Macungie Memorial Park Hall, 50 Poplar St., Macungie, Pennsylvania 18062. Early Shopper Admission at 7:30 am ($20 admission fee for early shoppers) For info: Bill Hegedus 610.264.3130, forksofthedelawarebottles@hotmail.com or contact James Etheredge 570.710.3602. For updates see our Facebook Page – Forks of the Delaware Bottle Collectors, FOHBC Member Club

20 October 2024 – Findlay, Ohio 47th Annual Findlay Antique Bottle Club Antique Bottle & Collectibles Show & Sale, Owens Community College, Education and Wellness Center, 3200 Bright Road, Findlay, Ohio 45840, 9 am to 2 pm $5, Early Bird Sunday 7 am to 9 am $20 (Dealer-only set up Saturday) Contact: Fred Curtis 419.424.0486, finbotclub@gmail. com, Website: finbotclub.blogspot.com, FOHBC Member Club

25 & 26 October 2024 – Nashville, Tennessee Area

Tennessee Bottle Collectors Presents their Nashville Area Antique Bottle & Advertising Show, Wilson County Fairgrounds, 945 E. Baddour Pkwy, Lebanon, Tennessee 37087, Behind Expo Center, I-40 Exit 239B, Friday 1:30 to 6:00 pm Early Buyer $15 Admission, Saturday 8:00 am to 2:00 pm Free Admission. Dealer Set-up: Friday: 11:00 am to 6:00 pm, Saturday: 7:00 am. For Show Info or Vendor Contract, Contact Show Chairmen Greg Eaton: at

865.548.3176 or Stanley Word at 615.708.6634, FOHBC Member Club

27 October 2024 – Countryside, Illinois

55th Annual 1st Chicago Bottle Club Show & Sale, 9:00 am to 2:00 pm, $5 admission at a new location: Holiday Inn Chicago SW-Countryside, 6201 Joliet Road, Countryside, Illinois 60525, Show Chairperson: Tom Majewski, tnsmski@comcast.net, 630.778.1932, FOHBC Member Club

03 November 2024 – Elton, Maryland

The Tri-State Bottle Collectors and Diggers Club 51st Annual Show & Sale, Singerly Fire Hall, Routes 279 & 213 (I-95 exit 109A), 300 Newark Avenue, Elkton, Maryland 21922, 9:00 am to 2:00 pm, No Early Admission, Dealers only entry at 7:30 am for Set-up, Admission: $3 per person, Children under age 12 free, Contact: Dave Porter, President, 100 Jarmon Road, Elton, Maryland, 21921, 717.779-8324, daveelle@msn.com, FOHBC Member Club

15 & 16 November 2024 – Biloxi, Mississippi

Presented by the Olde Guys Digging Club of Biloxi, MS, the 7th Annual Mississippi Gulf Coast Antique Bottle Show will be held from 9:00 am to 4:00 pm Saturday, November 16, 2024 at the Joppa Shrine Temple, 13280 Shriners Blvd., Biloxi, MS 39532 (Exit 41- I-10). Dealer Set Up on Friday, November 15, 2024 from 12:00 noon to 5:00 pm and Saturday, November 16, 2024 from 8:00 to 9:00 am. Free Admission on Saturday, November 16, 2024. Early Buyers $20 per person during dealer set up on Friday. For more information or table contracts contact: Peter Taggard, 645 Village Lane South, Mandeville, Louisiana 70471. Phone 985.373.6487 Email: petertaggard@yahoo.com

23 November 2024 – Clemmons, North Carolina

Clemmons Antique Bottle Show (formerly Greensboro Bottle Show) at the Village Inn Hotel & Event Center, 6205 Ramada Dr. Clemmons, North Carolina 27012, Saturday 9:00 am to 3:00 pm, No Early admission, Set up: Saturday 7:00 am to 9:00 am. Free to the Public! Contact: David Erickson, 336.247.1928, dave.erickson111@gmail.com

FOHBC Houston 2024

Drake’s Plantation Bitters Commemorative Bottles

A limited run (estimated 250 pieces) of hand-blown, pontiled, cobalt blue commemorative Drake’s Plantation Bitters were commissioned and will be sold at Houston 24 to celebrate the FOHBC Houston 2024 National Antique Bottle & Glass Exposition.

SALES The FOHBC has ccompleted a one-time-run (multi-sessions) using a private marked mold. The eventual retail cost is projected to be $250 a bottle. The commemorative bottles will be on sale at the FOHBC Houston 24 tables at Hotel ZaZa. First come, first serve. Limit, one per FOHBC membership. The Drake’s Plantation Bitters component is headed up by Michael Craig and Michael Seeliger. No advance reservations or sales. Each bottle will be discretely marked on the glass base by the maker. A facsimile of the “Drakes” label (depicted) will be provided separately within each sales box.

RAFFLE Houston 24 Sapphire Drake’s Plantation Bitters Raffle Bottle. The FOHBC is selling raffle tickets for $5 each or 6 for $20. You need not be present to win. This is the only way a non-member or FOHBC member who is not in Houston will be able to get one unless you buy the teal Drakes in the H24 Bayou City Sunset Auction on Saturday evening 03 August 2024. The drawing will be held at 1:00 pm on Sunday at Hotel ZaZa (04 August 2024). Tickets are available by sending a check made out to FOHBC raffle to Michael Seeliger, FOHBC, N8211 Smith Rd, Brooklyn, Wisconsin 53521 before July 15th. Tickets will also be available at select shows from now until Houston 24 directly from Michael Seeliger. Tickets will also be sold at Houston 24. Bottle will be sent to the winner immediately after Houston 24 ends.

AUCTION Houston 24 Sunset Auction Teal Drake’s Plantation Bitters. One teal Drake’s Plantation Bitters will be included in the Bayou City Sunset Auction. Make plans to attend on Saturday evening, 03 August 2024 at Hotel ZaZa (Grapevine and Room with a View – 11th Floor). We are excited to announce that Crowded House Auctions (Martin Van Zant and “Balsam” Bill Granger) are heading up this event for the FOHBC. There will be 100 pieces (+/-) in the auction that will be called live and be listed online for bidding approximately one week before the event. Catered and cash bar.

Membership Benefits & Display Advertising Rates

The Federation of Historical Bottle Collectors (FOHBC) is a non-profit organization supporting antique bottle and glass collecting. The goal of the FOHBC is to promote the collection, study, preservation and display of historical bottles and related artifacts and to share this information with other collectors and individuals. Membership is open to any individual, club or institution interested in the enjoyment and study of antique bottles and glass. Membership benefits include:

–Antique Bottle & Glass Collector (AB&GC), the official publication of FOHBC and the leading publication for those interested in antique bottle and glass collecting and all associated ephemera. Annual subscription includes 6 issues (bi-monthly) of this all-color, 72-page plus covers publication. (Digital memberships also available.)

–Free classified advertising in AB&GC. Ads may be up to 100 words for items of $25 or greater value; and one free ad of 60 words each year For Sale, Wanted, or For Trade. (Restrictions apply and free ads are limited to the first received for available space.) Ads appear on the FOHBC website also. See page 72.

–FOHBC.org, a comprehensive website dedicated to the organization and hobby, providing access through the Members Portal to the latest news in the collecting world, Membership Directory, archived magazine issues, indexed articles, Federation meeting minutes and announcements, and a vast assortment of research material.

–Virtual Museum of Historical Bottles and Glass, the most comprehensive antique bottle and glass experience on the Internet. Spinning images of museum-quality examples of antique bottles and glass, including well-researched history of the manufacture, distribution, and use of each item.

–Auction Price Report, an online resource which includes the sale price and description of anything auctioned by the top antique bottle and glass auction houses in the past decade. Easy to use. Updated annually. (Password protected.)

–National Shows and Conventions, featuring displays, educational seminars, membership meetings, social events, and banquet with interesting speakers, all centered around a first-class sale event. Members are eligible for discounts on “Early Admission” or table rental.

–Newsletter, digital presentation of periodic postings to keep FOHBC members up to date on current issues affecting the hobby.

Affiliated Bottle Club Membership brings these additional benefits to your group:

–Federation-sponsored Insurance Program for your show and any other club-sponsored activities. (Application required for each event.) Value of this is many times more than the cost of club membership.

–Club Display Ad in AB&GC at discount of 50%.

–Free Club Show Ad on the Federation website to increase your show’s exposure. –Free Links to Club Website; Social Media (Facebook) exposure.

–Free Federation Ribbons for Best in Show and Most Educational display at your show.

For more information, questions, or to join the FOHBC, please contact: Elizabeth Meyer, FOHBC Business Manager, P.O. Box 1825, Brookshire, Texas 77423; phone: 713.504.0628 or email: fohbcmembers@gmail.com

Visit us at FOHBC.org

Where there’s a will there’s a way to leave Donations to the FOHBC Did you know the FOHBC is a 501(c)(3) charitable organization?

How does that affect you? It allows tax deductions for any and all donations to the FOHBC. You might also consider a bequest in your will to the FOHBC. This could be a certain amount of money or part or all of your bottle collection. The appraised value of your collection would be able to be deducted from your taxes. (This is not legal advice, please consult an attorney.) The same-type wording could be used for bequeathing your collection or part of it; however, before donating your collection (or part of it), you would need the collection appraised by a professional appraiser with knowledge of bottles and their market values. This is the amount that would be tax deductible. Thank you for considering the FOHBC in your donation plans.

Membership Application, Classified Advertising & Article Submission

FOHBC Individual Membership Application

For Membership, complete the following application or sign up at FOHBC.org (Please Print)

Name

Address

City __________ State___________________

Zip

Telephone

Email Address

Collecting Interests ________________________

Additional Comments

Do you wish to be listed in the online membership directory?(name, address, phone number, email address and what you collect) { } Yes { } No

Would you be interested in serving as an officer? { } Yes { } No

Would you be interested in contributing your bottle knowledge by writing articles for our magazine? { } Yes { } No

Would you be interested in volunteering to help on any FOHBC projects? { } Yes { } No

Membership/Subscription rates for one year (6 issues) (Circle One)

(All First Class sent in a protected mailer)

United States

- Standard Mail $40 1st Class

- Standard Mail w/Associate*

-

Digital Membership (electronic files only)

$25

Canada – First Class $60 Other countries – First Class $80

- Life Membership: Level 1: $1,000, includes all benefits of a Standard 1st Class membership. No promise of a printed magazine for life.

- Level 2: $500, includes all benefits of a regular membership but you will not receive a printed magazine, but rather a digital subscription.

Add an Associate Membership* to any of the above at $5 for each Associate for each year.

Associate Member Name(s)

*Associate Membership is available to members of the immediate family of any adult holding an Individual Membership. Children age 21 or older must have their own individual membership. Associate Members enjoy all of the rights and privileges of an Individual Membership.

Signature

Please make checks or money orders payable to FOHBC and mail to:

Date

FOHBC Membership, Elizabeth Meyer, P.O. Box 1825, Brookshire, Texas 77423, Phone: 713.504.0628

Email: fohbcmembers@gmail.com

Affiliated Club Membership for only $75 with liability insurance for all club-sponsored events, 50% discount on advertising in Antique Bottle & Glass Collector, plus so much more, Contact: FOHBC Business Manager: Elizabeth Meyer, PO Box 1825, Brookshire, Texas 77423, 713.504.0628, fohbcmembers@ gmail.com

Antique Bottle & Glass Collector Free Ads

Category: “WANTED”

Maximum - 60 words

Limit - One free ad per current membership year. OR

Category: “FOR SALE”

Maximum - 100 words

Limit - 1 ad per issue.

(Use extra paper if necessary.)

Clearly Print or Type Your Ad

Send to: FOHBC Business Manager: Elizabeth Meyer, P.O. Box 1825, Brookshire, Texas 77423; phone: 713.504.0628; or better yet, email Elizabeth at: fohbcmembers@gmail.com

Magazine Submission Requirements:

We welcome the submission of articles and related pictures pertaining to antique bottle and early glass collecting, our hobby, digging, diving, and finding, as well as other interesting stories.

SUBMISSION POLICY—Articles:

All Antique Bottle & Glass Collector articles or material needs to be submitted via an FTP site, email or hard copy.

Electronic text files should be in Microsoft Word.

Electronic photo files should be in JPEG, TIFF or EPS format.

Resolution of 300 dpi at actual publication size is preferred but as low as 150 dpi (at double publication size) is acceptable.

SUBMISSION POLICY—Classified ads:

All ad copy should be typewritten, clearly & legibly printed, or sent via e-mail.

The FOHBC will not be responsible for errors in an ad due to poor quality, illegible copy.

The FOHBC reserves the right to refuse any advertising.

Please send articles/images to fmeyer@fmgdesign.com or mail to business manager noted on bottom of previous column.

Antique Bottle & Glass Collector

from our Past

“King Tut’s Tomb Discovery Experience” and the “American Antique Glass Masterpieces” Exhibition

01-04 August 2024