Beginning in the late 1870’s, a cereal based product called Maltine was manufactured and sold in New York City by the Maltine Manufacturing Company. Advertisements in the early 1880’s described it like this:
MALTINE is a highly concentrated extract of malted BARLEY, malted WHEAT, and malted OATS, containing undiminished and unimpaired, all the nutritious principles that can be extracted from these cereals. By the most carefully conducted scientific process we are enabled to offer a perfect article, possessing FIVE to TEN TIMES the beneficial and nutritive merit of any alcoholic or Fermented Extract of Malt.
The advertisements went on to say:
MALTINE will increase both weight and flesh in most persons of thin habit.
Maltine was sold “plain” as well as in combination with other ingredients added to address specific issues. Many of their early advertisements, all directed toward the medical profession, included this list of Maltine Preparations.
Some addressed “INDIGESTION, GENERAL DEBILITY, ETC…
…while others focused on CONSUMPTION AND WASTING DISEASES.
Recognizing that a picture is worth a thousand words, Maltine’s overall sales pitch might best be illustrated by a turn of the century advertisement called the “Maltine Tree.” The tree was described in the October, 1900 edition of the “Journal of Medicine and Science.”
The Maltine Company has originated a very suggestive cut. Maltine represented by a tree thrusting its roots deeply into the soil and taking therefrom, in the form of oats, wheat and barley, those constituents which give to it a real food value. Those roots unite forming a grand trunk, which in turn branches into a majestic tree bearing as its fruit the various Maltine compounds… Just as the orchard tree is known by its fruits, so Maltine has won success because of the intrinsic merits of its several preparations.
Maltine was the brainchild of a man named John Carnrick who developed it while he was a principal in the firm of Reed & Carnrick. A feature on Carnrick, published in the February 25, 1897 edition of the “Pharmaceutical Era” made it clear that the Maltine Manufacturing Company was one of several outgrowths of the Reed & Carnrick business.
Mr. Carnrick claims the honor of having introduced elixirs as a class of pharmaceutical products over thirty years ago. Among a few of the principal preparations he introduced are Lactopeptine, Maltine, Peptonoids, Peptenzyme, Protonuclein and Soluble Food.
One feature of Mr. Carnrick’s business method has been the organization of several companies to carry on the sale of his various discoveries. Among these are the New York Pharmacal Association, the Maltine Manufacturing Company, and the Arlington Chemical Company. The preparations manufactured by these companies were popularized by Reed & Carnrick.
So with that as background it’s apparent that the Maltine story begins with John Carnrick, whose early history was included in the 1897 “Pharmaceutical Era” feature.
A native of Sand Lake, Rensselaer County, New York, he spent his boyhood in Troy and came to New York at the age of 17. After teaching school for a while he took a course in medicine, but instead of graduating he opened a drug store in Jersey City, and commenced the study of pharmacy and chemistry with a view to improving the palatable qualities of medicine…The original drug store was operated by Mr, Carnrick under the name of Gardner and Carnrick.
Early Jersey City directories tell a slightly different story. There’s no record (that I can find) of the Gardner & Carnrick partnership, however, Robert W. Gardner was listed as a druggist at 229 Newark Avenue in both 1861 and 1862. The following year, in 1863, the Carnrick name appears for the first time with the occupation “druggist” at the 229 Newark Avenue address. Also appearing at that address was the drug business of Post & Carnrick. So suffice to say, by 1863, Carnrick and another druggist, Burdett Post, had apparently bought out Gardner and were operating his former store.
Carnrick’s Jersey City venture was apparently short-lived and as early as 1864, John Carnick & Co. was listed in New York City at 122 Liberty Street with the occupation druggist. Sometime in 1867 or 1868, Edwin Reed and John Andrus joined Carnrick on Liberty Street and they established the drug manufacturing company of Reed, Carnrick & Andrus. Their business card advertisement, featuring the Liberty Street address, appeared in the October, 1870 edition of the “American Chemist.”
Later, likely in early 1871, the company moved to a nearby location at 198 Fulton Street as evidenced by this February, 1871 “Indiana Journal of Medicine” advertisement.
Both advertisements specifically refer to Carnrick’s elixirs which, according to a feature on Andrus published years later in the October, 1908 edition of “National Magazine,” became popular at that time.
Four years after graduation with a capital of $10,000, he (Andrus) became one of the firm of Reed, Carnick and Andrus, at the time manufacturing a single medicinal preparation. In 1873 they were doing an immense business having been the first to exploit the class of medicines known as “elixirs” which replaced, to a great extent, the old extracts and syrups.
In 1874 Andrus withdrew from the company and its name was shortened in the directories to simply Reed & Carnrick. According to the “National Magazine” feature, Andrus went on to establish the New York Pharmacal Association, to manufacture and sell another of Carnrick’s discoveries, Lactopeptine, and its compounds.
Shortly after the departure of Andrus, Reed also left the business and by 1878 the NYC Copartnership and Corporation Directory named Carnrick as the sole proprietor Of Reed & Carnrick. It was around this time that the Maltine name began to appear in the medical journals and, according to United States Tax Court records in the case of “The Maltine Company v. Commissioner of Internal Revenue, Promulgated December 19, 1945:”
On February 6, 1878 a corporation known as “The Maltine Manufacturing Company” was organized in New York “for the purpose of carrying out and conducting the manufacture and sale of a medical preparation known as ‘Maltine’ and its compounds.”
Up through the mid-1880’s Carnrick was named the president of both Reed & Carnrick and The Maltine Manufacturing Company, with both companies occupying the same office space, now at 182 Fulton Street. The two companies, along with the New York Pharmacal Association, also shared a manufacturing facility north of New York City in Yonkers, New York. According to the “History of Westchester County, New York,” published in 1886, the facility was located between Dock Street and Nepperhan Street, facing the bend of the Nepperhan River.
The building was constructed by the late C. H. Lilienthal, and was long used by him as a tobacco factory…. It had been occupied since 1881 by Reed & Carnrick, manufacturers of beef peptonoids, and by the Maltine Manufacturing Co. for the manufacture of Maltine. In the spring of 1884 it became also the headquarters of the New York Pharmacal Association for the manufacture of Lactopeptine.
This March 1884 advertisement in a publication called “The Medical Summary” exhibited both the New York City office and Yonkers factory locations.
The three companies continued to utilize the Dock Street factory until it was destroyed by fire in 1885. The fire was described in the January 12, 1885 edition of the “Yonkers Statesman,” an excerpt of which follows.
All that is left of the medicine factory is part of four brick walls. About everything in the building was destroyed. The flames spread so fast that nothing could be saved, and the brisk wind which was blowing made it impossible to stop the fire. The building was occupied by Reed & Carnrick, manufacturing chemists of New York City, the Maltine Manufacturing Company and the New York Pharmacal Association. There were upwards of 100 hands in the employ of these concerns. Reed & Carnrick had machinery valued at $75,000 and the pharmacy company machinery valued at $20,000. The losses of the three concerns will, it is estimated, exceed $200,000, while the insurance is comparatively light.
According to the “History of Westchester County,” The Maltine Manufacturing Company moved to a new factory location in Yonkers after the fire.
The Matltine Manufacturing Company since the fire have carried on their operations in the building on Palisade Avenue formerly operated by Flagg’s factory
That being said, not long after the fire things began to change. In 1886 the Reed & Carnrick offices had moved out of Fulton Street to 6 Harrison Street, and by 1888 The Maltine Manufacturing Company was in the throws of a reorganization. “According to an August 27, 1896 story in the “Yonkers Statesman,” when the dust settled, in 1890, Timothy L. Woodruff had purchased the controlling interest in The Maltine Manufacturing Company.
The 1890 NYC Copartnership and Corporation Directory listed their office on Warren Street in Manhattan, and named Woodruff, president, Vincent W. Chapman, secretary and Rodney A. Ward, treasurer. The company would, sometime in the early 1890’s, move their offices to 168 Duane Street.
Five years later, in 1895, Woodruff consolidated the company’s factory and offices in Brooklyn, New York. The announcement appeared in the April 12, 1895 edition of the “Brooklyn Daily Eagle.”
Timothy L. Woodruff signed contracts this morning with William M. Brasher for the transfer of a valuable manufacturing plant on Eighth Avenue, Eighteenth and Nineteenth Streets. The negotiations were conducted through C. N. Moody & Co…. The plant purchased for Mr. Woodruff, who, as president of the Maltine Manufacturing Company, will at once convert it into a scene of activity, consists of forty-four city lots, nearly all covered with brick warehouses and factory buildings. It covers a plot 200 feet square on Eighth Avenue, Eighteenth and Nineteenth Streets, with two, three, four and five story buildings, a complete magazine of boilers, machinery, etc., and a plot 100 x 475 on Eighth Avenue and Nineteenth Street, covered in a like manner.
In speaking of his new purchase Mr. Woodward said: “It is my intention to open up this plant as soon as possible. Our factory is now at Yonkers, where we employ about two hundred hands, but when we open the Brooklyn factory, we will not only bring these men with their families with us, but will find room for many others. Not only this, but we will make the place our offices, which means the taking over to Brooklyn of the hundred or more clerks in our New York building. The plant on Eighth Avenue is one of the largest in Brooklyn and we have plenty of room to grow…Heretofore we have had a certain part of our manufacturing completed in Canada but in future it will all be done in Brooklyn.”
Not long after the move, in December, 1897, the company effectively reorganized under the name of a newly formed corporation called simply the Maltine Company and Woodruff continued as president up until his death in 1913. During that time, in addition to running the Maltine Company, Woodruff held a number of other positions as well, most notably serving as New York State’s Lieutenant Governor from 1897 to 1902.
On a side note: this long list of Woodruff’s 1897 occupations appeared in the November 9th edition of the “Brooklyn Times Union.”
After Woodruff’s death in 1913, his brother -in-law, Rodney A. Ward, took over as president until his death in 1925.
As late as 1927 the company was still producing a wide range of malt based products as evidenced by this advertisement that appeared in the July 15, 1927 edition of the “New York State Journal of Medicine.”
The Maltine Co.’s factory was still listed in the Brooklyn telephone books at the Eighth Avenue location in the mid- 1940’s at which time then president, James C. Chilcott, announced the company was moving to Morris Plains, New Jersey. The announcement appeared in the “Chatham (N.J.) Press” on October 25, 1946
James C Chilcott, president of the Maltine Company, New York announced today that the company is erecting modern laboratories for the development and manufacture of pharmaceutical products on the sixteen acre tract of land along Mount Tabor Road, formerly known as the Sire property.
A little over a year later, the December 14, 1947 edition of the “Brooklyn Daily Eagle” announced that their Brooklyn facility was up for auction.
Now up and running it Morris Plains, New Jersey, their recently opened facility was described in the August 19, 1948 edition of the “Bernardsville (N.J.) News.”
The Maltine Company has completed the removal of equipment and staff to its new laboratories at Morris Plains, it was announced last week. James C. Chilcott of Lloyd Road, Bernardsville is president and Chairman of the Board of the company.
The modern, enlarged quarters are the result of expansion plans made necessary by the great increase in sales of Maltine products. Sales volume has risen 400 per cent since 1940.
The new brick buildings are located in a picturesque hilly area a short distance from the town. The largest of the three structures contains manufacturing areas, a cafeteria and general offices.
The nearby research building houses the library, pilot plant and complete laboratories for the research staff. Each research division is equipped with its own set of laboratories… Productive capacity at the new laboratories is 200 per cent greater than that possible at the former Brooklyn location
This post card certainly depicts a portion of their new facility around the time it opened.
Most, if not all, of the Maltine Company’s growth during the 1940’s was predicated on the manufacture of drugs that were no longer malt-based, so much so that in 1950 they established a new division. The February 4, 1950 edition of the “Bangor Daily News” provided some of the details.
The Maltine Company in setting up a new division in its famous old business has named it the Chilcott Laboratories Division of the Maltine Company. This will be of particular interest to Bangor people as the new division was named for James C. Chilcott, son of the late Dr. and Mrs. Langdon S. Chilcott of Bangor…
Because 93 per cent of the Maltine company’s business now embraces such drugs as proloid, tedral, depancol, cellothyl, and others it was deemed advisable to select a name for this branch of the business dealing with drugs not containing malt.
Less than a year later, an October 12, 1951 story in Newark, New Jersey’s “Star Ledger” announced that the Maltine Company was acquired by Warner-Hudnut via an exchange of stock.
Warner-Hudnut Inc. manufacturer of pharmaceutical and cosmetic products, has entered into an agreement aimed at acquiring control of the Maltine Co. of Morris Plains, N. J., heads of the two companies disclosed yesterday.
According to a joint announcement by Elmer H. Bobst, president of Warner-Hudnut and James C. Chilcott, president of the Maltine Company, the agreement provides for an offer of exchange of two shares of Warner-Hudnut common stock for each share of Maltine common stock, of which 146,652 shares are outstanding.
Not long after the acquisition, newspaper advertisements for products with the Maltine name, already quite scarce, disappear, with the last one I can find appearing in the October 3, 1952 edition of the “Concord (N. H.) Monitor.”
By the mid-1950’s newspaper references to Maltine products had also disappeared from advertised drug store price lists.
Ultimately, in 1955, Warner-Hudnut merged with the Lambert Co. forming the Warner-Lambert Pharmaceutical Company.
I’ve found two types of Maltine bottles over the years. One contains a little over 16 ounces and its shape suggests it contained Maltine – Plain or one of it’s compounds..
This labeled version of Plain Maltine that recently appeared for sale on the internet exactly matches the size and shape of the subject bottle.
Mouth blown, the bottle likely dates to around the turn of the century.
The other, also mouth blown, contains roughly 8-ounces and exactly matches the coca wine bottle pictured in this December, 1898 advertisement found in the “Indiana Medical Gazette.”
Another advertisement, this one found in the September, 1894 edition the “Southern Pratitioner” referred to Maltine with Coca Wine as “A New Liquid Preparation,” suggesting that it hit the market around that time.
By 1910 most states had banned the sale of drugs containing cocaine, only allowing its use under a physician’s prescription. This all suggests that the bottle dates sometime between 1894 through the first decade of the 1900’s.