The Texas Blue Blob by Brandon DeWolfe

The Texas Blue Blob

By Brandon DeWoolf

The “Texas Blue Blob” all clean in the sunshine

Although Texas is not necessarily known for having particularly early bottles, several early Texas bottles can be found here by a persistent digger.

This is the story of the early days of one of the first bottling works in Texas and the digging of one of those special bottles that came from there.

Philip Canterbury

Philip Canterbury was born around 1798 in Massachusetts and died May 30, 1872, in New Orleans, Louisiana.

He was an orphan, with both of his parents passing away when he was very young. The first listing for him is as the owner of a coffee auction house in New Orleans in 1846 at 116 Chartres. At some point in the 1840s, he married a widower named Bridget Fox; they had one child who died young. Philip appears on the 1850 Census in New Orleans as a soda water manufacturer, in the 1851 New Orleans directory as a soda water manufacturer at 18 Circus St. (now South Rampart) and in 1852, he appears as the owner of the Bachelor Hotel in Biloxi, Mississippi.

Indications are that Philip arrived in Galveston around 1855 from New Orleans (he shipped one slave from New Orleans to Galveston on March 28, 1855). Shortly after arriving in Galveston, he owned or managed a soda water business located at the corner of Winnie Street and 26th Street. In 1859 and 1866 he is listed by himself in the city directories, in 1868 he is listed as Canterbury & Cordis (sic), and by 1870 he does not show up in the Galveston directories and appears to have moved back to New Orleans.

As a side note, it is unknown if Philip started in Galveston with his own business or if he was perhaps supporting F.A. Conant’s (prolific bottler in New Orleans) branch in Galveston (source of the only pontiled soda bottle marked Galveston). When Philip passed away in New Orleans in 1872 and his estate went to probate, one of the witnesses was F.A. Conant, who testified that he had known Canterbury for “thirty-odd years.” Additional research is needed on this front.

Henry William Cortes Sr.

Henry W. Cortes Sr. was born on February 2, 1831, in Prussia and died on April 10, 1899, in Galveston, Texas.

Although not definitively the same person, a 20-year-old Heinrich Cordes arrived in Galveston from Bremen, Germany on November 30, 1850, on the Barque “Solon.” He married his wife Mary (nee Vordenbaumen) in Galveston in 1855, but that is the earliest firm reference found for him in the United States. Interestingly, he is listed as Henry Cortes in the marriage records. In the 1860 US Census, he is listed (as H. Curtis) as having a livery stable in Galveston. The 1868 directory has him listed (as H. Cordis) as part of the firm of Canterbury & Cordis (sic). During this time, one of P. Canturbury’s bottle molds was modified to include “& Curtis” below the Canterbury name. In 1870, the Galveston directory lists him alone (as H. Curtis this time) as having soda water at the same address as Canterbury’s business in earlier years.

Thus, it appears that sometime between 1866 and 1868, Henry Cortes partnered with Philip Canterbury, then Philip retired and the business became Henry’s by 1870.

Finally, in 1872, Henry is listed in the Galveston Directory under his correctly spelled last name “Cortes.” It is not known if the spelling of Cortes as Curtis (and Cordis) was intentional due to some desired Anglicization of his name or if it was just a misspelling that persisted. The various spellings of his name have caused confusion for people trying to research the early years of the bottling works and his partnership with Canterbury.

Philip Canterbury Slave Manifest Shipping 1 Slave from New Orleans to Galveston, Slave Manifests of Coastwise Vessels Filed at New Orleans, Louisiana, 1807-1860

F.A. Conant Testimony Regarding Philip Canterbury, Louisiana. District Court (Orleans Parish) Succession Records, 1846-1880

It was an extremely difficult dig due to the privy going to below the water table but I found some very interesting bottles from 1860-1870 including a nice olive green umbrella ink and a “Donnaud’s Remedy for Baldness” from New Orleans.

At some point, probably in the early 1880s, Cortes’s soda works became the “Texas Bottling Works” and this was embossed on their bottles in addition to his name. In 1880-1881, a branch of the business was opened in Houston in partnership with Frederick Pothoff but soon closed and Frederick opened the very successful “Union Bottling Works” in Houston around 1882.

Henry William Cortes Jr.

Henry William Cortes Jr. was born on May 30, 1856, as the eldest child of Henry and Mary in Galveston, Texas, and died in a tragic carriage accident in Houston on October 4, 1908.

By 1877, he was listed as a partner with his father Henry Cortes Sr. in the soda business, as was William Cortes, his younger brother. In 1884, his father appears to have retired and the business passed on to Henry Jr. with some partners; interestingly William Cortes is listed as a driver for a competing soda water business (George Grempczynski). Around 1885, Henry Cortes Jr. opened a branch of the “Texas Bottling Works” in Brenham, Texas that was quickly passed (in late 1885) to his younger brother William. William ran the bottling works for many years in Brenham until he died in 1901.

Henry Cortes went on to be one-half of the large hardware company “Bering & Cortes” of Houston.

Later Years

By 1886, the business passed completely out of the Cortes family and passed to several different owners throughout the 1880s before finally landing in the hands of Charles Marschner. Charles moved the business to another location in Galveston in 1891, ending 30+ years of the business continue operating in the same location at the corner of Winnie St. & 26th St.

The Bottles

Between 1860 and 1885, Galveston bottlers Philip Canterbury, Henry William Cortes Sr., and Henry William Cortes Jr., working out of the plant at Winnie & 26th, put out a minimum of 7 different blob top sodas, 2 different gravitating stopper sodas, and 7 different hutch sodas. In addition, their branch businesses had three different Houston, Texas hutch sodas and one Brenham, Texas hutch soda. A number of these bottles from Canterbury and Cortes are extremely rare, with a few having only one or two examples known to exist in collections. It is my (lofty) goal to dig or acquire all of the different Canterbury and Cortes bottles from all 3 cities.

The “Texas Blue Blob” all dirty On Saturday, May 8, 2021, I drove down to an area of Galveston, Texas with some vacant lots that I have been digging with permission for several years (I live about 1.5 hrs away).

During the previous dig, I had probed out and dug an extremely large barrel privy on a corner lot of the block. It was an extremely difficult dig due to the privy going to below the water table but I found some very interesting bottles from 1860-1870 including a nice olive green umbrella ink and a “Donnaud’s Remedy for Baldness” from New Orleans.

On this day, I arrived around 6:00 AM just as the sky was lightning and began probing. Typically where there is one privy, there are others nearby, so I began probing in one direction towards the alley, but could not find anything of interest. I then went back and started probing in the other direction towards the interior of the lot, and about 7’ from the big barrel privy, I found a slightly crunchy spot that was about 5’ deep. In Galveston, many of the trash pits and privies are full of oyster shells, and depending on how rotten the shells are, they can be deceiving to probe.

Nonetheless, I opened up the hole and after removing about 18” of soil I started rolling out some 1940’s and 1950’s whiskies (definitely not an encouraging start). I dug down another 12” and exposed a wooden wall as though it were a privy, but the stuff in the hole was still very new. At the 3’ level, everything changed. The bottles and shards coming out were from the late 1890s and the layering became more like what I like to see in a privy. By now I had exposed all 4 wooden walls and found that the privy was very small; perhaps 3’ x 3’ or smaller. I dug a nice H. Koester pharmacy bottle from Galveston and things were looking up.

Unfortunately, the bottom was near with natural clay appearing at 5’. Along one wall at the very bottom, I pulled out a hutch soda (Forsgard, Waters & Co.), which is a very rare soda from

Galveston from a short-lived purveyor of Moxie (TX0285 on hutchbook.com) dating to around 1888. On a normal day, this hutch would have made the day as it was the first intact example of this bottle I had dug. I continued to work my way around the bottom of the privy at the 5’ level and along the opposite wall I popped out a blob soda bottle. Before I even picked it up, I could tell it was an extremely rare variation of the Cortes blobs that is embossed “Henry Cortes & Son/ Galveston/Texas” with a strange symbol on the base. The shoulder on these bottles is narrower than the base so they are easy to identify. These come in two colors: aqua (which is very rare but I have dug before) and cornflower blue (which is extremely rare and I had never dug intact before). The question was…what color was it?! I picked it up and held it up to the sun and could not see through it due to all the mud.

As I lugged it back to the truck to wrap it up, I finally got the base cleared up enough to be able to see the sun through it…and I’ve got to say that I was hooting and hollering. I was digging alone this day, so I didn’t have anyone to share my excitement with, but it was the cornflower blue version! For me, this was a bucket list bottle that I never imagined I would have a chance to dig. I wrapped the bottle up and finished up the privy. I dug one other

F.A. Conant Galveston Blob Soda (Pontiled), Front & Back Three different P. Canterbury Blob Sodas, the last being Canterbury and Curtis

Two different variants of the H. Cortes Blob Sodas Three variations of the H. Cortes & Son Blob Sodas with Color Variations

Similar Privy to May 8, 2021 Dig (On Same Lot) hutch soda from the hole; an H.W. Cortes hutch soda with a backward N that is from when Henry W. Cortes Jr. ran the business in the 1880s. I had the privy filled in and was probing for another hole by 9:00 in the morning. The privy covered roughly 18771900 but had been extensively dipped over the years, just leaving three earlier bottles jammed against the walls and some 1890’s stuff from the final fill-in towards the center.

The remainder of the day was spent chasing small trash pits with the only bottle of note being a “Dr. McGork’s Drug Store” bottle, which though not marked as such, is a scarce Galveston pharmacy bottle.

Anecdotally, there is only one other intact example of the cornflower blue “Henry Cortes & Son” bottle. It was reportedly dug around 1965 by prolific Galveston digger Virginia Kesel and now resides in a prominent Texas soda collection.

Sources

Galveston, Texas, City Directory, 1859, 1866, 1868, 1870, 1872, 1874, 1875, 1876, 1877, 1878, 1880, 1881, 1882, 1884, 1886, 1888, 1890, 1891

New Orleans, Louisiana, City Directory, 1846, 1851

Louisiana. District Court (Orleans Parish) Succession Records, 1846-1880

1850, 1860, 1870 United States Federal Census Lane, Bob & Alice. The Early Houston Sodas. Self Published, 1973

Slave Manifests of Coastwise Vessels Filed at New Orleans, Louisiana, 1807-1860

U.S., Atlantic Ports Arriving and Departing Passenger and Crew Lists, 1820-1959

The Houston Post. (Houston, Tex.), Vol. 24, Ed. 1 Monday, October 5, 1908

https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/85719389/henry-william-cortes

https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/155891119/henry-w-cortes

Brenham Daily Banner. (Brenham, Tex.), Vol. 9, No. 165, Ed. 1 Friday, June 27, 1884

Brenham Daily Banner. (Brenham, Tex.), Vol. 11, No. 6, Ed. 1 Friday, January 8, 1886

Brenham Daily Banner. (Brenham, Tex.), Vol. 26, No. 182, Ed. 1 Saturday, August 3, 1901

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