Fruit Jar Rambles: Rockwood's Acorn Jar

By Tom Caniff — Photos by Deena Caniff

ROCKWOOD’S ACORN JAR

We’ve had a picture of the jar in Photo 1 floating around here for years, just waiting to write it up, when an example showed up in Greg Spurgeon’s North American Glass auction in March of this year.

This clear, fancily shaped, unlettered, ground-lip jar stands about 11” tall and sports a metal screw cap (Photo 2) that’s nicely embossed * ROCKWOOD & CO. * ACORN BRAND all around TRADE (acorn) MARK within a round roped frame. The jar has been described as an acorn-shaped jar, but you have to look at it upside down, and the similarity is still pretty vague to me.

When we first saw one of these jars some years back, I had to do some looking to discover just who Rockwood & Co. was and what the relatively large product jar might have held.

Well, then. In 1886, the firm of Rockwood & Co., chocolate and cocoa manufacturers, was formed, with a factory on Cherry Street, in Manhattan, New York City. William Rockwood and Wallace Thaxter Jones were equal partners.

The business expanded and the firm moved its factory to Washington and Park Avenues, Brooklyn, in 1902, becoming incorporated at that time. Mr. Rockwood died in 1902 and Mr. Jones became president of the company, retaining that office until his death at age 72, all according to the April 8, 1922 BROOKLYN LIFE, of Brooklyn, N.Y., upon the occasion of Mr. Jones’ death.

Rockwood & Co.’s Acorn Brand Chocolates were advertised as early as April 3, 1888, in the ALTON (Illinois) EVENING TELEGRAPH. “Rockwood & Co’s Acorn Brand (Absolutely Pure.) Each Chocolate Cream is wrapped in wax paper bearing the trademark of the above concern –– a guarantee of fine quality and reliable goods. The quality is unsurpassed by any goods of the kind made, equaling those that are retailed at 80c to $1 a pound, while the popular price of these is 40c a pound...”

Figure A shows a plug for the chocolates from THE MANSFIELD COOK BOOK that reads “Rockwood & Co’s Cocoas and Chocolates / We heartily recommend to our customers. W. H. Mansfield & Co. –– Try Acorn Brand Chocolate Creams.”

And on December 4, 1897, ‘Acorn Brand Wrapped Chocolates’ were described in the SALINA (Kansas) DAILY REPUBLICAN JOURNAL, as being “absolutely pure, being made of the finest cocoa, sugar and fruit flavoring, with each piece separately wrapped and bearing the trademark of Rockwood & Co.” Is it possible that these Acorn chocolates might have been packed in our featured Acorn jar? Considering the apparent scarcity of the jars, a nine (or more) year run seems a long time.

Aside from chocolates, Rockwood was also noted for its cocoa. The Dec. 10, 1909, HARTFORD (Connecticut) COURANT carried advertising stating that, “A cup of Rockwood’s Cocoa is as nourishing and strengthening as an average helping of meat - 10 Cups For 5 Cents. We now pack Rockwood’s Cocoa in convenient 5-cent cans. Note what this means to you: You get just as much for your money as you do in large-size cans. Each can makes ten cups.” Photo 3 shows Rockwood’s Rock-Co Brand Cocoa in a larger two-pound tin, of uncertain date.

Rockwood & Co. was one of the most widely known candy and chocolate manufacturers in the United States.

PHOTO 1: Rockwood & Co. candy jar.

PHOTO 2: Rockwood metal screw cap.

By Tom Caniff — Photos by Deena Caniff

When Wallace Jones died in 1922, the company was the third largest of its kind in the United States. It was said that later the company ranked number two, behind only Hershey.

In 1954, Rockwood & Company was sold to a Chicago industrialist, and by 1957 the company had become part of the Shelby Shoe Co. Then the Rockwood factory was sold to the Sweets Company, who produced Tootsie Rolls there until 1967, when the plant was closed.

The Acorn Brand half-gallon jar in the North American Glass auction sold for a respectable $110.

MAYSON JARS

One of the time-consuming things about doing internet research in old newspapers is that one keeps coming across tantalizing things that you just have to stop and read. The internet devours time voraciously anyway, and when you have to stumble your way through a forest of hundred-year-old news and advertising teasers, research just slows down to a crawl, even with the best of intentions.

It was while looking for something entirely unrelated in the June 10, 1900 issue of the ATLANTA (Georgia) CONSTITION that I came across the ad in Figure B. “Free Fruit Jars,” it shouted, offering unheard of “Mayson Fruit Jars” at that!

Turns out it was all a ruse, an eye-catcher to snare the unwary home canner.

“Mayson Fruit Jars,” the ad seemed to proclaim, “Non-Corrosive Tops. Free! Free! Free!” Then, having set the hook, came the attempt to reel in the potential customer. “A well known receipt [recipe] for putting up Fruit. This receipt was sold at the Exposition for $5.00. We will send the receipt free on receipt of 2¢ stamp to cover mailing. There will be more fruit than can be used. Now is the time to buy your Fruit Jars cheap. Write for prices. Hunnicutt & Bellingrath Co.”

In 1895, the Hunnicutt & Bellingrath Company was located on Peachtree Street, in Atlanta, Georgia. They had been described a few years earlier as a plumbing company, but circa-1900 Hunnicutt & Bellingrath ads were offering “the largest stock of hardwood mantels, tile and grates, odorless refrigerators, house furnishing goods, pumps, pipe and fittings.” Apparently fruit jars were one line of the many things they sold.

It seems obvious that “Mayson” was a play on words for “Mason” fruit jars. Atlanta has had, over the years, a number of citizens named Mayson, as well as a Mayson Avenue, Mayson Street, and even a Mayson Park. And it’s not impossible that one of the Mayson locals could have patented an unheard-of new style fruit jar, although the odds of that are infinitesimal.

In 1900, five dollars was a lot for the average home canner to have paid for a “receipt for putting up fruit,” whatever that means, but likely that was just the secondary hook to get folks to request the free receipt and to be lured into buying the company’s fruit jars, whatever brand they were.

As to the Exposition where the receipt was reportedly sold for $5, the “Exposition Universelle,” held in Paris in 1900, known in this country as the 1900 Paris Exposition, seems the obvious one. I can find no other Exposition in Google or various newspaper files that would seem to qualify. But the ad was primarily smoke and mirrors anyway, so who knows?

FIGURE A: An 1890 ad for Acorn Chocolate Creams.

PHOTO 3: Two pound tin of Rockwood's Rock-Co Brand Flavored Pure Cocoa.