Patent Medicine – Bay Bottles

A. G. Groblewski & Co., Plymouth, Pa., U.S.A.

Beginning in the early 1890’s Albert G. Groblewski was a retail druggist and patent medicine manufacturer headquartered in Plymouth, Pennsylvania. Initially a one man operation, by 1930 his company, Albert G. Groblewski & Co., Inc., had grown to the point where it was manufacturing in excess of 60 different patent medicines under the Groblewski name. The company, always headquartered in Plymouth remained operational until the early 1970’s.

Their marquee product, Rattlesnake Liniment (later called simply Groblewski’s Liniment) was on the market for much, if not all of the company’s lifetime. This advertisement for his “Rattlesnake Brand Liniment” along with two others, “Linden Cough Balsam and “Bear Brand Salve,” appeared in the 1930 “North American Almanac.”

A Polish immigrant, Groblewski was born in April, 1862 (1900 census records) and arrived in the United Sates sometime in the 1870’s (1872 in 1900 census records and 1876 in 1910 census records). This photograph of Groblewski along with his wife Helena, circa 1915, was found in the June 6, 2004 edition of the Wilkes-Barre “Times Leader.”

Groblewski’s early history as a Pennsylvania druggist was summarized in his April 18, 1925 obituary, published in the Wilkes-Barre “Times Herald.”

…At the age of 16, he came to this country with his parents to Nanticoke, where the family resided for 10 years. His early education was received in Poland. After arriving in Nanticoke, Mr. Groblewski secured a position as a clerk in a drug store, conducted by the late Dr. Sutliff…

After serving ten years as a clerk in a drug store at Nanticoke and with his rapid advancement and knowledge he was made manager of a drug store at Glen Lyon, which position he held for three years. Gaining an increasing knowledge in the druggist-business, he sought to own a business of his own, and in 1890 he moved to Plymouth, where he purchased the drug business of Jonathan R. Davis, at 111 East Main Street. Two years later he started the manufacturing of drugs which proved a tremendous success.

Those early years in business were described like this in a feature on Groblewski published years later in the May 12, 1930 edition of the “Times Leader.”

At 111 East Main Street, Plymouth, in a small one room drug store and with an investment of but $500 Groblewski started this business… A yearly sale of products turned out for the most by his own hands was $150 in that early day when the now famous rattlesnake liniment was first presented to the business world.

It wasn’t until later in the decade that advertisements for Rattlesnake Liniment along with another patent medicine called Egiuterro began appearing in the local Pennsylvania newspapers. This early advertisement featuring both appeared in several August, 1898 editions of Wilkes-Barre’s “Sunday News Dealer.”

Also marketed under the Polish name “Zmijecznik ,” this advertisement for Groblewski’s liniment appeared in the June 7, 1900 edition of a Polish language newspaper in Chicago, Illinois called “Zgoda.

Courtesy of “Google Translate” the ad read:

The most effective and best remedy against Rheumatism, Backache, Neuralgia, Catarrh, Headache, Cold, Sore Throat & Cramps

So it’s safe to say around the turn of the century Groblewski was both operating a local retail drug store and manufacturing a line of patent medicines under his name. The drug store was apparently doing quite well as evidenced by this announcement published in the July 18, 1900 edition of the “Times Leader.”

Albert Groblewski has placed a handsome new soda fountain in his drug store.

That being said, it was as a patent medicine manufacturer that Groblewski would ultimately earn both his reputation and fortune and by 1903 that piece of the business had him expanding his 111 Main Street facilities. The announcement appeared in the March 12, 1903 edition of the “Times Leader.”

WILL ENLARGE HIS PLANT

Albert G. Groblewski the manufacturer of Egiuterro and Rattlesnake Liniment, owing to the increased demand for his goods, will shortly build an addition to his present place. Mr. Groblewski now ships 12,000 bottles every month to all parts of the United States, and is so rushed with orders that he cannot supply the demand.

Two years later, according to a December 9, 1905 “Times Leader” story, Groblewski’s manufacturing business continued to grow, both in size and geographical reach.

He manufactures 40 different articles guaranteed to reach the ailing spot and aid in a complete restoration to health and vigor. His offices and laboratories are extensive and well equipped with all the appliances that go to make chemistry a serviceable science… He has about twenty skilled persons employed in laboratory and manufactory and his shipments from Plymouth weekly are very large.

Mr. Groblewski has about 200 agents all over the United States and Canada selling his goods…

Of the 40 articles referenced in the above story, 19 were listed in this advertisement that appeared in the July 8, 1905 edition of the “Wilkes-Barre Times.”

The “Times Leader” story went on to say that by then Groblewski was making shipments overseas as well.

…his fame extends all over the United States and Canada, the British Isles, Germany, France and even to Brazil… He found some difficulty this week in making a large shipment to Brazil. None of the express companies would ship direct owing to lack of facilities in the American merchant marine. He was obliged to ship the goods to Germany and from there have the packages reshipped to Brazil.

All things considered, it comes as no surprise that later in the decade with 111 Main Street apparently maxed out, a March 22, 1907 “Times Leader” story announced that Groblewski was planning the construction of larger quarters.

MANUFACTURING DRUG PLANT

Albert G. Groblewski, the well known manufacturing druggist, will shortly begin the erection of a building wherein will be manufactured the half hundred different remedies which he has on the market. The building will be at the corner of Main and Elm Streets, the site now occupied by the Well Building, which he purchased some time ago for that purpose. The present building will be moved to the rear and the new one to take its place will be sufficiently large for the employment of a hundred or more hands. It will have all the conveniences known the trade, will be provided with all sanitary improvements, and when completed will be one of the most complete factory buildings in the country. Mr. Groblewski is one of the largest advertisers in the State and notices of his goods are displayed in newspapers published in the various languages.

A year later the company moved into their new facility at 241 East Main Street with the announcement appearing in the March 28, 1908 edition of the “Times Leader.”

This undated photo of their 241 East Main Street facilities appeared in the May 6, 1940 edition of the “Times Leader.”

The photograph certainly suggests that the store front accommodated his drug store while the manufacturing facilities and a printing operation occupied the remainder of the building. The recently added printing operation was described in a March 5, 1908 “Times Leader” story.

New Printing Establishment

Albert G. Groblewski the well known druggist and medicine manufacturer, will establish a printing office in his new building recently erected at the corner of Main and Elm Streets…

Mr, Groblewski has purchased the printing establishment of Alexandre Rynsza, of West Hazleton, and will have the type, presses, etc., removed there and placed in his new building. Some of the presses arrived here today. He intends to establish a general printing office and when all his machinery is placed in position for operation he will then be in a position to do all kinds of printing, both in the English and Polish languages.

He spends several thousand of dollars each year for the printing of advertising matters for the many remedies that he has on the market and which are shipped to all parts of the globe and he contends that it will mean a great saving to him by being able to do his own printing.

Mr. Rynsza, from whom he purchased the printing plant, will have charge of Mr. Groblewski’s printing establishment here and they expect to have it in operation in a few weeks.

Groblewski remained sole owner of the business until July 12, 1921 when according to a story in the May 13, 1930 edition of the “Times Leader:”

…the corporation of Albert G. Groblewski was formed with a fully paid in capital stock of $150,ooo to take over the entire operations of Albert G Groblewski, Sr., Albert G. Groblewski, Sr. becoming president of the new company and holding office until January 1, 1925, on which date he resigned due to ill health, being succeeded by his son, Bernard Groblewski…

Less than five months after his resignation Albert Groblewski, Sr. passed away on April 21, 1925

Shortly after taking over the business Bernard gave up the retail drug business completely. An item announcing the sale of their drug store fixtures found in the October 8, 1925 edition of the “N.A.R.D Journal” suggested the decision was driven by the need for more manufacturing space.

THIS IS A REAL BARGAIN – WE NEED THE ROOM NOT YOUR MONEY

This itemized list of annual sales found in a May 12, 1930 “Times Leader” story justified their need for additional manufacturing space.

The “Times Leader” story went on to say:

Adding to the above were 500,000 packages of 4 powders each and 60 other articles of importance all of which brought up the total sales during 1929 of Groblewski products to the amount of 854,658 separate ready-for-sale pieces…

…The retail value of the plant’s product today is conservatively placed at $200,000…. Of our annual business 7 percent or about $14,000 worth is done in the Wyoming Valley and 93 percent of our products are sold throughout the rest of the United States and other countries.

The May 12th “Times Leader” story went on to describe the distribution network that was needed to service Groblewski’s over 18,000 retailers, most of whom by 1930, as a result of tariffs, were located in the United States.

At present there are distributing depots for Groblewski & Co. products located at Philadelphia, Pa., Seattle, Wash., Baltimore, Md., New York City, Jersey City, N.J., Brooklyn, N.Y., Chester Pa., Newark, N.J., Passaic, N.J., Buffalo, N.Y., Camden N.J., Cleveland, Ohio, Utica, N.Y., Toledo, Ohio, Detroit Mich., Chicago, Ills., Toronto, Canada and Canton City, China. Besides being sold in these cities products are sold in practically every city and town in the industrial part of the United States. The firm has had inquiries, and receive inquiries very often, from many parts of the world, but due to existing high tariffs and also unfavorable trade regulations it is impossible to sell products in most Foreign countries.

Like many patent medicine manufacturers of the day Groblewski attributed much of his success to advertising, a subject he addressed as early as 1905 in the February 17th edition of the “Times Leader.”

Albert G. Groblewski the well known druggist and patent medicine manufacturer of Plymouth, whose advertisement will be found elsewhere in this paper and whose remedies are well known and highly esteemed all over the country, tells a LEADER representative that he pays between $5,000 and $6,000 for advertising and he expects to keep on increasing the amount year by year because he has learned from experience that advertising is the keystone of success and you cannot do business with profit today without advertising.

By 1930, according to the May 12th “Times Leader” story:

The products of Albert G. Groblewski & Co. Inc. are now advertised in street cars, buses, newspapers, magazines, by novelties, booklets, telephone directories, window displays, show cards, billboards, wall paintings, radio, etc. Albert Groblewski & Co., also advertised by an attractive float, in the Sesqui Centennial parade held July 4th, 1928.

This depiction of their float appeared in the “The Book of the Sesquicentennial Celebration of the Battle of Wyoming, July 1st-4th 1928.”

It’s hard to argue against the success of Groblewski’s advertising but you can certainly take issue with its content. As early as February 20, 1902, this advertisement in the “Times Leader” claimed:

… any person who uses my Egiuterro No. 1 WILL NOT and CANNOT be afflicted with SMALLPOX.

So, as time went on it’s no surprise that claims like this led to charges of misbranding by the U. S. Department of Agriculture. In one instance this led to the seizure of a June 3, 1916 shipment that contained ten different Groblewski preparations. Specific to Egiuterro, the January 29, 1918 government report stated:

Analyses of samples of the articles by the Bureau of Chemistry of this Department showed the following results:

Egiuterro: The product consists essentially of aloes, magnesium sulfate, jalap, strychnine, alcohol, and water, flavored with methyl salicylate…

… It was alleged in substance in the laboratory that Egiuterro was misbranded for the reason that certain statements appearing on the label falsely and fraudulently represented it as a preventative for smallpox, and as a remedy for rheumatism, dyspepsia, all kinds of fevers, all stomach disorders, all sores, inflammations, swellings, coughs, headaches, for pimples, blotches, boils, and all kinds of skin eruptions which are due to the impure blood or disarranged condition of the liver and kidneys, when in truth and in fact, it was not. Misbranding of the article was alleged for the further reason that it contained alcohol, and the label on the bottle failed to bear a statement of the quantity or proportion of alcohol contained therein.

Other mis-branded preparations included in the siezure were: “Uicure” touted as a cure for rheumatism, pyemia, sciatica, gout, etc.; “Sweet Rest for Children” as a remedy for three-months colic, fretful, cross and nervous babies; “Beaver Drops Comp.” as a remedy for irregular menses, etc.; “Blood Kleen” as a treatment for syphilis, eczema, anemia, cancer and lockjaw; “Heart and Nerve Regulator” as a heart and nerve regulator, a perfect sedative for delirium tremens, St Vitus dance, sleeplessness and nervous headache; “Kidneyleine” as a remedy for Bright’s disease and dropsy; “Eye Powder” as a remedy for cataract and sore eyes; “Tanrue Herbs and Pills” as a remedy for suppressed, painful and irregular menses and “5 Herbs” as a remedy for epilepsy and “fits.”

Twenty-five years later the government was still taking issue with the advertisements for many of their preparations, including Egiuterro, as evidenced by this July 28, 1943 news item found in Hazlton, Pennsylvania’s “Standard-Speaker.”

The Federal Trade Commission has announced that Albert G. Groblewski & Company of Plymouth, has agreed to cease advertising a number of medical preparations unless revealing the possible ill effects which the commission claims would follow their unrestricted use.

The commission said the preparations are Groblewski’s Headache Powders, Groblewski’s Naval Jelly, Groblewski’s Jadol, Nervoteine, Groblewski’s Preparation C, Groblewski’s Powders for Round Worms, Oohotin, Groblewski’s Revila Powders and Egiuterro.

According to this March 21, 1967 item found in “The Scranton Tribune, the company was still addressing misbranding issues in the mid-1960’s.

Headache Powder Seizure Sought

The federal government took steps in Federal Court here Monday for seizure and condemnation of 571 cartons of “Groblewski’s Headache Powders” in possession of Albert G. Groblewski & Co., 241 E. Main St., Plymouth.

Asst. U.S. Attorney Thomas J. Hanlon, in a petition seeking seizure and condemnation of the drugs, stated the shipment was “adulterated and misbranded…”

In spite of their running issues with the government, Albert G. Groblewski & Co. remained in business until 1974 at which time a notice announcing the dissolution of the company appeared in the April 6th edition of the “Times Leader.”

A “Q & A” newspaper column entitled “The Hot Line” found in the “Greensboro (N.C.) Record” suggests that the company was manufacturing their Rattlesnake Brand Liniment up until the very end, or at least until the early 1970’s. On April 18, 1970 the following question appeared in the column.

Q. I need some snake oil, an old time remedy. Where can I get some? D.K.

The answer came six days later.

Tell D.K. he can still purchase the snake oil from manufacturers: Albert G. Groblewski Co., Plymouth, Pa. It comes by one-half box or six bottles. We bought some last time we were in Pennsylvania and its lasted a long time. And D.K. is right – it does the job.

The subject bottle was blown in a mold, contains two ounces and includes the name of “A. Groblewski & Co.” embossed on the face. An unscientific review of the Groblewski directory listings and advertisements suggests that they didn’t begin to use that name until after the business incorporated in 1921. If that’s the case then the bottle was almost certainly blown at around that time. Anything later and I’d expect a machine made bottle. In fact, by 1921 machine made bottles were quickly becoming the norm.

On a final note: As far as I can tell, the building constructed by Groblewski at 241 East Main Street in 1907/1908 remains to this day. Sadly, now housing several apartments it barely resembles the original version.

Barry’s Tricopherous For the Skin and Hair, New York

Barry’s Tricopherous was primarily billed as a hair care product that was popular both in the United States and abroad from the mid-nineteenth century up through the early twentieth century. Originally touted as a cure for baldness, by the late 1800’s its suggested uses had expanded to include skin disruptions as well.

An elegant dressing. Prevents baldness, grey hair, and dandruff. Makes the hair grow thick and soft. Cures disruptions of the skin. Heals eruptions and diseases of the skin. Heals cuts, burns, bruises and sprains…

Later, by the 1920’s its claims had been toned down quite a bit with one ad simply saying:

There is no more effective treatment for the scalp and hair than a few drops of Barry’s Tricopherous gently massaged into the scalp two or three times a week… You will feel the healthful effect of Tricopherous. It makes your scalp tingle with health!

A product labeled Barry’s Tricopherous is still made today by the firm of Lanman & Kemp-Barclay.

According to several stories making the rounds on the internet Barry’s Tricoperous was invented in 1801 by the father of a man named Alexander C. Barry. Later advertisements, published in the 1880’s actually state “Established in 1801.”

That being said, New York City directories and early newspaper items paint a different picture, suggesting the product got its start, not in 1801 but in the mid-1830’s, and not with the Barry’s but with a man named Vair Clirehugh.

In 1835/1836 Clirehugh, a native of Edinburgh, Scotland, was first listed in the NYC directories at 158 1/2 (later 160) Fulton Street with the occupation “wig maker.” As early as October 27, 1835 this advertisement touting his business appeared in New York’s “Evening Post.”

The advertisement reads:

TO THE LADIES. – CLIREHUGH, Ladies Hair Dresser, from London, respectfully solicits the patronage of the ladies of New York.

The experience of 20 years, and the patronage of the Royal Family and principal Nobility of England, may have some influence in recommending him as an artist whose classic and scientific engagement of the hair will be esteemed by all who study the true graces of the person.

The intended winter fashions have arrived. The costume of the Courts of London and Paris are to be the prevailing mode; and those ladies who will honor his abilities with a trial may at all times depend on his personal attendance.

Ornamental Hair of every description.

158 Fulton street. one door from Broadway, north.

Three years later Clirehugh began advertising what he called “The Tricopherous or Medicated Compound” for the prevention of Badness and Grey Hair, with his earliest ads appearing in October, 1838 editions of New York’s “Daily Herald.”

Sounding introductory in nature the ad stated, in part:

It is the only effectual remedy ever discovered to prevent baldness and Grey hair – to restore the Hair where it has fallen off – and to eradicate Scruff and dandruff. Prepared by CLIREHIGH, Hair Cutter, 160 Fulton Street, New York.

Although in number and variety there may be no want of specifics for the preservation of the Human Hair, yet the article now presented to the public, though entirely new in its composition, has claims superior to anything of the kind ever offered for the same purpose, its production being the result of extensive medical research and experience.

The proprietor is favorably known in this city, and celebrated as a Hair Cutter and Wig Maker; and for some years prior to his arrival in this country, attended the Lectures of the most distinguished Physiologists in London and Edinburgh, for the purpose of attaining a correct knowledge of the Anatomy of the Skin, the Organization and Structure of the Human Hair, and to trace the causes which produce baldness and grey hair.

The opportunities afforded by his professional duties have assisted his studies, and he has become skilled in the various Diseases of the Skin, as connected with the growth of the hair; and after a series of experiments, this Compound has been produced, with a confidence that it will restore the hair wherever it has fallen out or got thin, as well as preserve it from ever changing color.

By the early 1840’s, advertisements for Clirehugh’s “Tricopherous or Medicated Compound” were appearing in U.S. newspapers up and down the east coast from Massachusetts to Washington D.C. This May 19, 1840 “Baltimore Sun” advertisement naming a wig maker named August Croyeau as his local Baltimore agent was typical.

Sometime, likely in 1841 , three years after Clirehugh began advertising Tricopherous, Alexander C. Barry apparently came on the scene working in Clirehugh’s salon on Fulton Street (he’s not listed in the NYC directories until 1842). At some point, there was some sort of disagreement and Barry was either fired or resigned depending on who you believe, after which Barry, now listed two blocks away at 160 Fulton Street, began selling Clirehugh’s Tricopherous at the discounted price of fifty cents a bottle. The drama that followed played out in the local newspapers beginning with this October 20, 1841 “New York Tribune” item run by Clirehugh.

DARING ATTEMPT AT IMPOSITION. – A person lately discharged from my employ has had the bare-faced audacity to possess himself of numerous show bills and fancy labels connected with the sale of my Tricopherous. He has likewise issued a handbill headed “Clirehugh’s Tricopherous,” into which he has had the impudence to copy verbatim the principal advertisements of my wrapper, and has put a label and printed “directions for use” on each bottle, similar in every respect to the original, and adds “that it is the same article which he manufactured while in my establishment.” The circumstance of such a gratuitous, unmitigated, and unlashing falsehood only requires to be denied by me, and the person making such assertion held up to public scorn.

I scarce deem it necessary to say that no one at any time, in or out of my employ was ever entrusted with the secret, and could not by any means arrive at it, and that none but myself and son ever knew any thing of its composition or manufacture. His attempt to impose a spurious imitation of the genuine Tricopherous, where he, in his ignorance and cupidity thinks the public will be entrapped to purchase because charged only 50 cents, will be duly appreciated.

The individual who could be guilty of such conduct will not hesitate as to any means he may adopt to deceive and impose on the public…

VAIR CLIREHUGH

Barry’s response appeared the next day in the October 21, 1841 edition of the “New York Tribune”

TO THE PUBLIC. – The despicable fellow who keeps the Hair Cutting Rooms at the corner of Fulton and Broadway, is openly, but fruitlessly endeavoring to lessen me in the estimation of the Public regarding the sale of “The Tricopherous” elicits this response. So far from being discharged from his employ, as he asserts, I beg to say, that I voluntarily resigned my situation, for the sole reason that he in his usual and degrading system of swindling refused to pay me my just demand, a fact which can be proved in the Third Ward Court. It is likewise false to assert that I did not manufacture the article called “The Tricopherous,” in his establishment; in proof of which I hereby offer the sum of $500 to any chemist in this or any other city, to analyze its ingredients and say that it is not the identical compound sold at the above place for One Dollar, that I sell at Fifty Cents. If this does not satisfy the Public, I will publish the constituent parts of the compound.

A. C. BARRY, 146 Broadway.

Making matters worse, by 1843 both were located on Broadway within two blocks of each other; Clirehugh at the corner of Fulton Street and Barry at the corner of Liberty Street. By then, each was advertising what was almost certainly the same exact product under their respective names, “Clirehugh’s Tricopherous” and ‘Barry’s Tricopherous,” while at the same time accusing the other’s as being an imitation. In a series of September 1843 “New York Tribune” items they went so far as to even accuse each other of copying the wording in their newspaper items.

In his September 1, 1843 item Clirehugh wrote in part:

…To assist the deception, C.’s advertisements have been copied verbatim – the fellow being to ignorant to write one…

And here’s Barry’s September 23, 1843 response, copied verbatim:

To assist the deception Barry’s advertisements have been copied verbatim, the fellow being to ignorant to write one.

The battle in the newspapers simmered down shortly afterward but the two remained competitors for the next decade and a half with each of them marketing what was almost certainly the same, or nearly the same product under their respective names.

During this time Clirehugh listed various addresses on lower Broadway, with the New York City directories associating him with various occupations that included “tricopherous”as well as “wig maker” and “perfumer.” An October 24, 1851 advertisement in the “Brooklyn Evening Star” that led with the following headline…

…went on to locate Clirehugh’s ‘principal depot” at 179 Broadway.

At the same time Barry, who had recently anointed himself with the title of “professor…”

…listed his business in the directories at 137-139 Broadway with occupations that included both “wig maker and “tricopherous.”

Clirehugh died suddenly on May 27, 1860. His obituary, published in the June 11, 1860 edition of Toronto’s “Globe and Mail,” told the story.

Our obituary of today contains the announcement of the death of Mr. Vair Clirehugh, a native of Edinburgh, and long a resident of New York, which melancholy event took place on board the steamship “Glasgow” on her voyage to New York. His death was wholly unexpected. He embarked on board the “Glasgow” in apparently robust health, with the view of returning to New York, after a lengthy visit to his native land with the view of spending the remainder of his days in the United States.

Clirehugh’s son who the New York City directories suggest joined him in business sometime in the 1840’s remained in the hairdressing business but apparently did not continue to manufacture or market Clirehugh’s Tricopherous, at least to any great extent. The last mention of Clirehugh’s Tricoperous that I can find was in the September 20, 1862 edition of a Norwich, Connecticut newspaper called “The Bulletin.” Ironically it appeared in an advertisement run by a local retailer that listed both Barry’s and Clirehugh’s Tricopherous under the single heading of “Hair Preparations.”.

Barry pressed on and sometime in the late 1850’s he moved his operation to 374 Pearl Street where it was first listed in New York City’s 1859 directory. Over the next ten years his operation continued to gain notoriety so much so that advertisements for Barry’s Tricopherous began appearing in such far away places as Australia. One such ad appeared in the August 13, 1862 edition of Austrailia’s “Newcastle Chronicle.”

In 1868, Barry also passed away unexpectedly when according to a story written years later in the September 8, 1912 edition of the “New York Times:”

…Barry fell down three flights of stairs in his residence, 471 Clinton Avenue, Brooklyn, and died of a fractured skull.

Subsequently, according to another story found in the November 17, 1907 edition of Buffalo, New York’s “Illustrated Times,”

Not long after her husband’s death Mrs. Barry sold the business for $10,000. to a nephew.

Not long after, Barry’s nephew, also named Alexander Barry, turned the rights to Barry’s Tricopherous over to a merchant and exporter named George C. Barclay. In a notice dated July 15, 1870 Barclay announced that he had acquired the rights to the generic name “Tricopherous,” having not only acquired the rights to “Barry’s Tricopherous,” but “Clirehugh’s Tricopherous” as well. The announcement appeared as a “Special Notice” in the July 27, 1870 edition of the “New York Daily Herald.” The notice read in part:

AN IMPORTANT NOTICE TO DRUGGISTS AND dealers in proprietary articles. Office of Barry’s Tricopherous for the Hair, 374 Pearl Street, July 15, 1870.- The undersigned begs to notify the trade that he has, by purchase, become sole owner of the good will, trademarks and business of and in “Barry’s Tricopherous,” and of and in “Clirehugh’s Tricopherous;” and he thus becomes the sole possessor of the right to the word “Tricopherous,” and also of the names “Barry” and “Clirehugh” in connection with the word “Tricopherous”…

He then went on to sign the notice

GEORGE C. BARCLAY, Sole Proprietor of “Barry’s Tricopherous” and of “Clirehugh’s Tricopherous.”

The notice in full is shown below.

Initially it appears that the younger Barry and Barclay continued to work together at Barry’s Pearl Street depot where both were listed in early 1870’s editions of Goulding’s Business Directory. As early as 1871 they had even added a hair dye to their menu as evidenced by this July 30, 1871 advertisement that reads:

Barry’s Tricopherous

Does not color hair. It is the best of all dressings and preservers, but BARRY’S SAFE HAIR DYE is expressly for coloring any shade, from a light auburn brown to a beautiful black…

Court records, “Clara S. Barclay v. Reginald G. Barclay,” summarized in the 1915 edition of the “Trade Mark Reporter,” pick up the story from there.

A co-partnership known as Barclay & Co., was formed in 1873 between Alexander Barry and Thomas Barclay. George C. Barclay was not a member of the firm of Barclay & Co., but he controlled and owned the firm name, good will, and the various trade-marks used in the business, which the co-partnership used under a rental agreement with George C. Barclay.

Now located at 26 Liberty Street, the company continued to expand their product line under the “Barry” name, as evidenced by this September 6, 1873 advertisement for Barry’s Pearl Cream.

As early as 1877 they were also selling products under the name “Dr. Reuter” as well. This 1879 “Reuter’s Life Syrup” advertisement found in a Hartford, Wisconsin newspaper called the “Times Press,” also included a pitch for Barry’s Tricopherous

The partnership between Thomas Barclay and Barry was apparently time limited and “expired by its own limitation” on December 31, 1877. A notice to that effect appeared in the January 14, 1878 edition of the “New York Herald.”

Less than a month later, on January 18, 1878, a new partnership was formed. Also called Barclay & Co., a notice that appeared that day in the “New York Herald” named George Barclay’s sons, William O. and Reginald G., as principals with no mention of Barry.

Initially the business listed 7 Burling Slip as their address until the company moved to what would become their long-time headquarters on the corner of Pearl Street and Stone Street (44 Stone Street and 77 Pearl Street), a location acquired by George C, Barclay in March of 1881. The real estate transaction was documented in the March 25, 1881 edition of the “New York Times.”

Over the next 20 years Barclay & Co. remained on Stone & Pearl during which Barry continued to be associated with the firm for much of the time. After disappearing from the NYC directories for a while in the late 1870’s and early 1880’s, he was once again listed at the firm’s address in 1883, and by the late 1880’s the NYC Copartnership and Corporation directories were again naming him as a principal in the firm, but now under the name Alexander Barrie. According to a December 1, 1885 story in the “Brooklyn Daily Eagle:”

Changed His Name

Alexander Barry of Montague Street, yesterday obtained from City Judge Clement permission to change his name to Barrie, his family name from some years ago until his grandfather changed it. Mr Barrie is a member of the firm of Barclay & Co. New York Wholesale druggists.

New York City’s Copartnership and Corporation Directory dated March, 1888 reflected the name-change from Barry to Barrie.

The court records, “Clara S. Barclay v. Reginald G. Barclay,” went on to say that after George C. Barclay’s death in 1897, the business relationship between his sons and Barrie continued.

George C. Barclay died in November 1897, and bequeathed the aforesaid property to his two sons William O. Barclay and Reginald G. Barclay, in equal shares with certain monthly payments to his wife and daughter. On December 31, 1897 a partnership agreement was entered into between William O. Barclay, Reginald G. Barclay, and Alexander Barrie to carry on business under the firm name of Barclay & Co. On the same date an agreement was made by the executrices of the will of George C. Barclay with the said persons, as co-partners, whereby during the continuance of the co-partnership they were given the right to use the name of Barclay & Co. and the good will thereof, and various trademarks which at his death had been the property of George C. Barclay.

Four years later William O Barclay also passed away after which Barrie and Reginald G. Barclay continued as partners under yearly agreements.

According to court records “Clara S. Barclay v. Reginald G. Barclay,” by 1904 their product menu included a series of products using both the Barry and Reuter name.

This early U. S. advertisement for one such product, Reuter’s Soap, appeared in the December 16, 1905 edition of “Brooklyn Life” (later ads suggest it was being marketed overseas as early as 1880).

On December 31, 1912 Alexander Barrie announced that he was separating from the business. The notice appeared in the January 4, 1913 edition of the “New York Times.”

The younger Barry (now Barrie) passed away four years later, in January 1917.

Around the same time Barrie left the business it apparently moved to 26 Beaver Street and in April, 1913 Reginald Barclay incorporated the business in Delaware. An August 3, 1915 “New York Times” story filled in some details.

… Reginald C Barclay incorporated Barclay & Co. in Delaware in April 1913 with a capitalization of $3,000,000… During May, 1914, Barclay conveyed his rights in the old Barclay & Co. to the new Delaware corporation and later it was discovered that the new company owned all the assets and business of the old.

Six years later, in December, 1919, with Reginald G. Barclay now apparently out of the picture, a company called Reuter-Barry was incorporated, with the notice appearing in the December 21st edition of the “New York Times.”

Still located at Barclay & Company’s 26 Beaver Street address, this 1923 price list found in the “Druggist Circular” confirms that the company continued to market products under both the “Barry” name and “Reuter” name including “Barry’s Tricopherous.”

This Reuter-Barry advertisement found in the 1925 “North American Almanac,” touted both “Reuter’s Soap” and “Barry’s Tricopherous.”

Sometime in the early 1930’s it appears that Reuter-Barry merged with Lanman & Kemp of Florida Water fame forming Lanman & Kemp-Barclay. The first listing I can find for the company appeared in New York City’s 1933 directory.

Following the merger, it appears that Lanman & Kemp-Barclay primarily focused the marketing and sale of Barry’s Triccopherous on overseas markets. U. S. newspaper advertisements for Barry’s Tricopherous vanished by 1930 and by the mid to late 1940’s the product had all but vanished from newspaper advertised drug store price lists. That being said, as late as 1973 it was still being advertised in Austrailia, as evidenced by this ad that appeared that year in several editions of a Melbourne newspaper called “The Age.”

Today, Lanaman & Kemp Barclay is still in business and still producing a version of Barry’s Tricopherous.

The bottle I found was blown in a mold and closely matches the one pictured in this late 19th century advertisement.

Lysol (Lehn & Fink)

All eight of the above bottles contained a concentrated disinfectant and antiseptic called “Lysol.”

Each bottle exactly matches the one pictured in an October 21, 1922 advertisement found in the “Saturday Evening Post.”

Sold in a concentrated form, the “Saturday Evening Post”ad indicated that it had to be measured out and mixed prior to use.

The advertisement then went on to provide mixing instructions and finally, how and where to use it.

Finding a total of eight such bottles out in the bay suggests Lysol was a “must have” in what must have been a remote and harsh environment back in the early 20th century.

So, with that as background, what follows is the “Lysol” story, a story that starts in the late 1800’s and is still unfolding today.

Lysol had its beginnings in Wiesbaden, Germany with a chemist and pharmacist named Gustav Adolph Raupenstrauch whose story appeared in the “Dictionary of German Biography, Volume 8,” published in 2005.

Raupenstrauch, the son of a pastor, began working in a pharmacy in Bistritz while still in school. From 1881 onwards he studied pharmacy and chemistry in Vienna and in 1886 obtained a doctorate. He was appointed departmental head at the food testing institute and the chemical testing institute in Wiesbaden and carried out research into disinfecting agents used to fight infectious diseases. His research resulted in the development of a new substance, Lysol, which was considered more effective and had fewer side effects than the disinfecting agents that had been used since then. In 1889 he received a patent for Lysol and in 1890 established a factory for Lysol production in Hamburg called Schülke & Mayr, whose Vienna branch he headed from 1892 onwards…

As early as 1890, word of the new product had reached the United States, as evidenced by this November 23, 1890 “New York Times” item found under the heading “Progress in Science.”

Among the latest disinfectants is “lysol,” which appears to be very much like carbolic acid. The emulsifying agent is resin or fat soap, tar acid being incorporated with the soap at the moment of saponification.

Two years later an August 28, 1892 story in the “Brooklyn Citizen,” announced that the New York City firm of Lehn & Fink was Lysol’s sole agent in the United States.

A CHOLERA PREVENTATIVE

Lysol Recommended by European Medical Authorities

The chief preventative of cholera and similar diseases is absolute cleanliness which insures the absence of disease germs. To secure this condition various antiseptic preparations are used. A new antiseptic has recently been discovered which many eminent physicians regard a superior to the old preparations.

Lysol, the new preparation in a 1 percent solution, possesses high antiseptic powers and is sure death to cholera and other disease germs. Unlike carbol and other similar preparations, it is convenient for ordinary use and leaves the skin smooth and soft.

Its use has been strongly recommended as a disinfectant and preventative by the Chief Sanitary Board of Austria. It is also used as a surgical antiseptic with marked success. Lehn & Fink, manufacturing chemists of No. 128 William Street, New York, are the sole agents in America for Lysol.

Over the next 100+ years, the stories of Lysol and Lehn & Fink would be intimately connected.

Lehn & Fink had begun in business eighteen years earlier, in 1874. Their start was descried like this in a booklet commemorating the firm’s 50th anniversary, published in 1924. Simply entitled “Fifty Years,” it began:

There were no fanfare of trumpets,” no formal housewarming when on May 1, 1874, the business which is now Lehn & Fink, Inc., was started at 160 William Street, New York City.

Mr. F. W. Fink having spent the morning in the employ of another wholesale house, terminated this association, as previously arranged, at noon, and walked to his own place of business…

He had no monetary capital, but one of his retail friends, Louis Lehn of Brooklyn, put in capital, which combined with that furnished by a special partner, afforded an amount sufficient to start the partnership of Lehn & Fink.

As early as 1876 the partnership of Lehn & Fink was listed in the NYC Copartnership and Corporation Directory with a capital of $10,000 and both Louis Lehn and Frederick W. Fink named as partners. Also included in the listing was “special partner,” Conrad Spengeman.

This advertisement for Lehn & Fink, the earliest I can find, appeared in an 1879 publication called “Notes on Assaying,” by Pierre de Peyster Ricketts.

A long-time employee named Robert R. Lampa, described their original 160 William Street quarters in a story written years later entitled: “Reminiscences of Forty-four years in the Drug Business.” It was published in the January, 1922 edition of “The Practical Druggist.”

When I entered the drug business 0f Lehn & Fink, the firm had been established only a few years – in 1874 I believe. It occupied very small quarters – 160 William Street – the building about 60 feet deep. We had a cellar and sub-cellar and part of the third floor. Subsequently we managed to get the first floor also and eventually we occupied the whole building, which all told, consisted, aside from the store and cellars, of three floors and a cock-loft of a depth somewhat shorter than that of the street floor. In this small building the goods were stored; orders put up, and shipments made and received. Goods were placed wherever there was room- and space was scarce – which means that an orderly arrangement of stock was impossible.

This depiction of their 160 William Street building generally supports Lampa’s description. It was included as part of an advertisement found in the August 20, 1927 edition of a publication called “Sales Management.”

Ten years later in 1884, according to a March, 1927 feature on Lehn & Fink published in a trade publication called the “Glass Container,” sales had “increased from nothing to a yearly total of $500,000,” necessitating a move to larger quarters at 128 William Street.

Up to this point the company was largely focused on business generated in the local New York metropolitan area. According to the “Glass Container” story that changed in the mid to late 1880’s when the company began to expand nationally. At the same time changes in management were occurring as well when, in 1886, Louis Lehn retired. Shortly afterwards, the 1888 NYC Copartnership and Corporation Directory named Fink, along with Charles Eberhardt and Albert Plaut as principals.

As the company was growing during the 1880’s they added two additional Manhattan facilities, a laboratory on Gold Street and warehouse on Pearl Street. Both are listed on their 1893 business card found in the June, 1893 edition of a publication called “Notes on Remedies.”

It was during this period of expansion that Lysol entered the picture, and by 1892, having acquired the sole rights to sell it in the U. S., Lehn & Fink began promoting Lysol in professional publications. This early advertisement to the medical profession appeared in a number of medical publications, including the June, 1892 edition of the “Toledo Medical and Surgical Reporter.”

A September,1895 advertisement included in a publication called “Notes on New Remedies,” not only touts Lysol to the medical profession for surgical and obstetrical use but also to veterinarians as an animal wash and to horticulturists as a way to destroy insect pests of all kinds.

At this point, according to the September, 1897 “Descriptive Price List of Lehn & Fink’s Specialties,” Lysol was sold in both 1-lb. bottles and 1 gallon jugs.

In 1898, Lehn retired after which the 1900 NYC Copartnership and Corporation directory named Albert Plaut along with his brother Joseph as principals, with Albert serving as president.

Not long after Albert Plaut assumed the presidency, the April 6, 1900 edition of the “New York Times” announced that the company was planning another move.

Albert & Joseph Plant, who compose the wholesale drug firm known as Lehn & Fink have bought through Ruling and Whiting, the property 120 William Street, 25 by 150, together with 79 John Street, containing about 7,000 square feet. The purchasers will tear down the buildings now on the site and erect a modern structure, which will be occupied entirely by their own business. The price paid for the combined properties is $151,000.

According to Robert Lamba’s reminiscences in the “Practical Druggist,” before the company could move into their new quarters, their present location at 128 William Street was destroyed by a fire.

The fire cleaned us out completely – stock, fixtures and all – had not even a single desk, inkwell or blotting paper to start anew with. The fire occurred on Friday night. That same night quarters were rented in Beekman Street and the fitting out of a temporary plant began immediately. Profers of assistance came from our friends and neighbors in the wholesale trade – they were accepted and helped us materially in getting us on our feet.

Lamba went on to say:

At the time of the fire Lehn & Fink had a new building under construction at 120 William Street, but it was not ready for occupancy. The walls were about up – that was about all. This new building – an L shaped, double building in fact was entered by us in 1901…

The building was depicted in a book entitled “New York The Metropolis,” published in 1902, the year after the building opened.

The publication described the company’s new home as:

A new fireproof eight story structure with electric plant and complete appointments, specially designed for the drug business.

Up to this point sale of Lysol was limited entirely to the medical profession. According to a February 2, 1922 feature on Lehn & Fink found in an advertising publication called “Printers’ Ink:”

Lysol was advertised in medical and hospital publications and by circularizing and sampling. The medical profession was circularized four times a year. Its use in hospitals spread rapidly, where as a bactericide in obstetrical cases it found favor…

This December 28, 1901 advertisement found in the “Philadelphia Medical Journal” suggested that it had certainly taken hold in the hospital community by then.

In daily use by thousands of doctors and in the most prominent hospitals FOR SURGICAL AND OBSTETRICAL WORK

The ad went on to name hospitals in several U. S. cities where Lysol was in constant use. New York City hospitals mentioned were Mount Sinai Hospital, Roosevelt Hospital, St Marks Hospital, German Hospital (now Lenox Hill), Presbyterian Hospital, New York Post Graduate Hospital and New York Polyclinic. Some of these hospitals are still with us today.

The “Printers Ink” feature went on to say:

Soon thereafter physicians began to prescribe it in the home, principally in confinement cases.

That almost certainly led to the smaller sized bottle mentioned in this July 14, 1906 advertisement found in the “Medical Record.”

According to the “Findings of Fact” in the case of Lehn & Fink Products Corporation v. Commissioner of Internal Revenue, Promulgated June 28, 1946 in U. S. Tax Court:

In 1910 Lehn & Fink, a corporation, was organized to conduct the business theretofore carried on by the partnership…

The following year, the 1911 Copartnership and Corporation Directory listed the firm as a New York corporation with capital of $600,000 and Albert Plaut named as president. Albert passed away several years later and in the 1915 directory his brother Joseph was named president.

It was around this time that the company began to broaden their advertising in an effort to reach the home market. Advertisements targeting the housewife began touting Lysol as a germicide and household disinfectant, a strategy exemplified by this January, 1915 ad found in “Good Housekeeping.” Leaning on their medical reputation, it read in part:

Lysol should be used regularly in your household, as it is in practically every hospital in the country. Disease finds it difficult to enter a house guarded by the Antiseptic, Disinfectant and Germicide, so much a favorite among physicians.

According to most internet sources, it was also in the early to mid-teens that Lehn & Fink acquired the rights to manufacture Lysol in the United States. Coincidently, in March, 1912 the company was planning a new six-story factory building on Sedgewick Street in Brooklyn. The announcement appeared in the March 22nd edition of the “Brooklyn Daily Eagle” under the heading:”New Buildings.”

Located along Brooklyn’s East River waterfront in the block between Sedgeick Street and Irving Street, the building was listed between 1913 and 1919 at 83 Sedgewick St. (sometimes 74 Irving St.). I suspect this is where Lysol was initially manufactured in the United States. In fact, according to the company’s anniversary booklet, “Fifty Years,” by the late teens all of the company’s manufacturing was being done in Brooklyn.

Lehn & Fink’s own manufacturing department was seized with growing pains. 120 William Street was devoted entirely to executive offices, stock rooms and shipping departments. In Brooklyn, N. Y., the laboratories and plant spread out and covered all the available ground and then began to grow up in the air. Wider sales of Lehn & Fink specialties constantly demanded increased production. New products were added to an already comprehensive list.

By the late teens that list of products included several under the Lysol name including toilet soap and shaving cream. Both were labeled as “new products” in this September, 1918 advertisement found in the “Journal of the American Pharmaceutical Association.”

The need for more space came to a head in 1920 at which time the company moved their laboratories and all of their manufacturing operations to Bloomfield, N. J. The move was announced in the April 20th edition of “The Practical Druggist.”

Increased business has again overtaken Lehn & Fink, Inc. A site of 20 acres, located on two trunk line railroads at Bloomfield, N. J. with ideal motor trucking facilities to New York and with convenient trolleys for Newark and other sections of New Jersey, was purchased when it became evident greatly augmented manufacturing facilities would soon be necessary.

Despite uncertain weather and building conditions, new ultra-modern manufacturing plants and laboratories were put up on this site during the winter and early spring. All departments of the plant, now in full operation, are directed by experts, while small electric trucks maintain continuous coordination between the departments.

During the same year the company moved their New York City operation to 636 Greenwich Street where it was located between Morton and Barrow Streets. The same April, 20th “Practical Druggist” story announced that move as well.

During the summer, Lehn & Fink’s executive offices, and stock rooms will be moved to the 170,000 square feet of floor space in a new steel and stone building at Greenwich, Morton, and Barrow Streets, New York City.

A fleet of motor trucks will operate between the Bloomfield plants and the New York building. Delivery delays will be eliminated by the scientific time saving plan of order filling which the great increase in space makes possible.

The building has also been designed to include everything possible for the comfort and health of employees.

The enthusiasm which is now radiating throughout the Lehn & Fink organization means that the public will get products of the highest and purest quality, delivered with a speed and precision in every way abreast of the times.

Both their New York and New Jersey facilities were pictured as part of a Lehn & Fink advertisement that appeared in several 1924 editions of “Hospital Management.”

In addition to geographical changes, the company’s growth brought about corporate changes as well. According to the 1946 tax court records:

As the business expanded, various subsidies were organized by Lehn & Fink, Inc., the first of which, Lysol, Inc. was incorporated in 1920 in Delaware to acquire control of the Lysol business throughout the world.

It was contemplated that Lehn & Fink, Inc. would continue the manufacture and sale of Lysol in the United States under a contract by the terms of which Lysol, Inc. employed Lehn & Fink, Inc., as its sole manufacturing and selling agent in the United States…

In 1924, another subsidiary, Pebeco, Inc. was established and a similar arrangement was made for the manufacture and sale of Pebeco Toothpaste after which, according to the tax court records:

the business of Lehn & Fink, Inc., had three aspects: (1) A wholesale business in pharmaceuticals and other items commonly carried by druggists; (2) the manufacture and sale of pharmaceuticals; and (3) the manufacture and sale of Lysol disinfectant and Pebco tooth paste…

At this point, with Albert Plaut’s son Edward, now serving as president, it was decided to make substantial changes in the business.

The 1946 tax court records went on to describe those changes.

The management decided to abandon the wholesale drug business and the manufacture of pharmaceuticals, and to devote the entire facilities of the business to the manufacture and sale of Lysol , Pebeco and such other nationally advertised and trade-marked products as it might thereafter acquire, the first of which was to be Hinds Honey & Almond Cream. The decision was motivated by a recognition on the part of the management that a single factory and laboratory staff, operating under a single executive and sales organization, could manufacture and market in the same trade channels three or more noncompetitive products more economically, and therefore more profitably, than the several products could be manufactured in separate plants and marketed by separate sales organizations.

This lead to the formation of the Lehn & Fink Products Company to serve as a holding company and acquire stock ownership of Lysol Inc., Pebeco, Inc. and the newly acquired A. S. Hinds Company. The prospectus appeared in several New York newspapers on August 4, 1925

Two days later, the August 6, 1925 edition of the “N.A.R.D. Journal” provided some additional information.

An event of unusual significance to the drug trade has been the formation during the past week of Lehn & Fink Products Company, a corporation organized to acquire all of the stock of A. S. Hinds Company, makers of “Hinds Honey and Almond Cream,” Portland Maine, and Lehn & Fink, Inc., New York, owners of the entire stock of Pebeco, Inc. and practically all the stock of Lysol, Inc.

Edward Plaut, who for the past five years has been president of Lehn & Fink, Inc., will be the managing head of the new company.

Lehn & Fink was founded fifty-one years ago… Since that time it has supplied the wholesale and retail drug trade throughout the United States with fine drugs and rare chemicals, and has proved an enormous source of new pharmaceutical and medicinal products. The two most widely known specialties of Lehn & Fink, Inc., are of course Pebeco Toothpaste and “Lysol” disinfectant. Lehn & Fink has been the sole distributor of these products for more than twenty years, and within the last ten years has acquired the entire ownership and trademarks of both.

Lehn & Fink Products Company will take over the splendid Lehn & Fink laboratories at Bloomfield, N. J. as its manufacturing plant. These modern laboratories among the finest in the country, are particularly well equipped to add the Hinds products to the L & F specialties already made there, and the actual transfer of operations from the Hinds plant to Bloomfield, N. J. will be accomplished practically without lost motion.

According to the March, 1927 edition of the “Glass Container” much of the plant space was devoted to “Lysol” and “Pebeco Tooth Paste.”

One wing of the plant is devoted to the manufacture and packing of Pebeco Tooth Paste, while another wing houses similar “Lysol” disinfectant operations. A large central wing is utilized for general manufacturing.

By 1927, according to Moody’s “Manual of Investments,” the plant in Bloomfield had grown to seven buildings covering seven acres of land and employed 400 people. Moody’s went on to make it clear the company’s products, including “Lysol” were being distributed world-wide.

Trade named products include “Pebeco Tooth Paste,” “Lysol Disinfectant” and other “Lysol” products, Hinds’ Honey and Almond Cream” and other “Hinds” products. Sale of products abroad is conducted through Lysol, Ltd., which manufactures and sells in United Kingdom, British Colonies and Japan and through German subsidiary, Schülke & Mayr, A. G. which handles continent of Europe, South America and Chinese business. Canadian business handled by Lehn & Fink, Canada, Ltd.

Throughout the early 1920’s Lysol Disinfectant continued to be touted primarily as a germ killer with their advertisements aimed at the housewife, as evidenced by this January 7, 1922 ad found in “The Saturday Evening Post.”

Later in the 1920’s, and certainly in the 1930’s and 1940’s, in addition to advertising it as a household disinfectant, it was also touted among other things as a cure for athlete’s foot…

…and as a feminine hygiene product.

In addition, the company wasn’t adverse to running focused advertisements in a specific geographic area that required clean-up after some sort of disaster. St. Louis, Missouri saw one such ad in early July, 1947 shortly after the Mississippi River overflowed its banks, flooding portions of the city.

In the late 1950’s and early 1960’s at least two new products emerged under the Lysol name. One, called Pine-Scented Lysol, was being advertised as early as 1957. This advertisement, one of the first I can find, ran in several west coast newspapers in November of that year.

Another was Lysol Spray Disinfectant. Advertisements for it, initially targeting boat owners, began appearing in Florida newspapers as early as the Fall of 1961. One, disguised as a newspaper article, appeared in the September 15th edition of Sarasota’s “The News.” It read, in part:

NEW SPRAY STOPS ODORS

Boat owners who despair at the amount of damage caused by mildew and suffer from unpleasant musty odors will be glad to know that there is a new product just being introduced which will render effective aid against these problems.

In a bright aqua and gold foil aerosol container, Lysol Spray Disinfectant not only counteracts destructive mildew but is also effective against germ-caused odors…

This early advertisement for their new spray appeared in several November, 1961 editions of Jacksonville’s “Florida Times-Union.”

In the meantime, over the course of the 1940’s and 1950’s the company added manufacturing facilities in Lincoln, Illinois and Toledo, Ohio. The October 11, 1947 edition of a Bloomington, Illinois newspaper called “The Pantograph” announced the opening of the new factory in Lincoln.

Official opening of Lincoln’s newest industrial development, the huge new plant of Lehn & Fink Products Corp., manufacturers and distributors of drugs and cosmetics was held Friday afternoon.

Edward Plaut, the New York City president of the company, headed a delegation of officials of the company from the East.

The plant located on Limit Street on the east side of Lincoln is said to be one of the largest in the country devoted to drug and cosmetic manufacturing. It consists of a main factory of modern, single-story design, together with a two story office building.

When in full operation the plant will employ 400 in the manufacture of the company’s various products which include Lysol disinfectant, Hinds honey and almond fragrance creams, Etiquet deodorant, Pebeco tooth paste and powder and the Tussy and Dorothy Gray lines of cosmetics.

Main offices of the corporation are in New York City. The Lincoln plant will augment the production of the company’s only other domestic manufacturing plant at Bloomfield, N. J.

In Toledo, Ohio they acquired and expanded the National Laboratories, Inc. facility there. The acquisition was announced in the September 23, 1957 edition of “The Blade.”

Sale of National Laboratories Inc. of Toledo to Lehn & Fink Products Corp., New York has been completed… National Laboratories will retain its present name, but will be incorporated as a Delaware corporation. It will operate as an independent subsidiary, one of 16 such Lehn & Fink units throughout the world.

Plans are under way for sizable future expansion of National Laboratories’ operations in Toledo, officials said. The company is in the process of constructing a plant addition, modernizing offices and more than doubling the size of laboratory research facilities.

Both factories were certainly needed when in 1963 it was announced that Lehn & Fink was closing their Bloomfield, New Jersey plant after 40+ years. The announcement, made by Edward Plaut’s son, Walter N. Plaut, who had taken over as president of the firm in November, 1960, appeared in the May 29, 1963 edition of Passaic New Jersey’s “Herald-News.”

Walter N. Plaut, president of Lehn & Fink Products Corp., announced plans to relocate the company’s Bloomfield plant in connection with a reorganization of company facilities. He said the move represented one part of an over-all program aimed at providing expanded, modern facilities for manufacturing and packaging operations. Discussions on these plans are being held with employee representatives.

It is expected that the manufacturing and packaging operations now conducted in Bloomfield at 192 Bloomfield Ave. will be moved to other locations. The company now maintains plants and warehouses in Toledo Ohio; Lincoln Ill.; Los Angeles, San Francisco and several other locations.

The plan would call for gradual discontinuance of operations over a period of about six months… Offices and research laboratories now in Bloomfield may be moved to more modern quarters in the general vicinity.

The following year the October 1, 1964 edition of the “Herald News” announced that the plant was closed and the property had been sold.

Lehn & Fink Products Corp. sold to Leonard N. Stern a complex of buildings on a 10-acre site in Bloomfield it was announced yesterday…

Lehn & Fink recently closed a manufacturing plant which it had maintained there and moved its operations to Lincoln Ill. It will maintain a research laboratory and office staff in the buildings and will continue to do so under a short-time lease with the purchaser…

Though Lehn & Fink had closed their Bloomfield manufacturing plant it soon became apparent they weren’t abandoning New Jersey altogether when, a month later the company announced they were building what would become their world headquarters there. The announcement appeared in the October 28, 1964 edition of the “Herald-News.”

Lehn & Fink Products Corp. has purchased approximately 35 acres of land in Montvale, N. J., to build a research laboratory and office building, Walter N. Plaut, president, announced yesterday.

The new facilities will be located on Summit Avenue, approximately one quarter of a mile west of Garden State Parkway near Exit 172.

In addition to research facilities, the buildings when completed in about 18 months, will house the corporate headquarters, the international division and the consumer products division which markets the Dorothy Gray and Tussy lines of cosmetics and skin care products, and the products of the L & F division which includes Lysol brand disinfectant, Lysol spray, Medi-Quick first-aid spray, Stri-Dex medicated pads and Noreen hair coloring products.

The company also operates manufacturing plants in Lincoln, Ill. and Toledo, Ohio and warehouses in Clifton, N.J., Lincoln and Los Angeles, as well as foreign plants in Hamburg, London, Milan, Toronto, Buenos Aires Argentina and Montevideo.

While the new facility was still under construction, the May 12, 1966 edition of “The Hackensack Record” announced that Lehn and Fink had merged with Sterling Drug, Inc.

MERGER SIGNED BY LEHN & FINK

Sterling Drug Inc. and Lehn & Fink Products Corporation have signed a joint agreement of merger, according to a joint announcement by Dr. J. Mark Hiebert, chairman of the board of Sterling and Walter N. Plaut, of Lehn & Fink. Lehn & Fink is building its headquarters in Montvale, N. J…

Under terms of the merger agreement, Lehn & Fink will be merged into Sterling, and Sterling will be the surviving corporation…Upon approval, the merger is expected to become effective June 30…

Lehn & Fink, now operating as a division of Sterting Drug, opened their new world headquarters in Montvale in September, 1966. The September 13th edition of “The Hackensack Record” covered the opening.

The gleaming new multi-million dollar headquarters of Lehn & Fink Products, the $75 million manufacturer of consumer and industrial products, was dedicated here today before 700 employees and invited guests…

James W. Newman, senior vice-president, said Lehn & Fink had consolidated its administrative, marketing and research organizations in order to place the principal creative functions under one roof and thus to achieve more efficient coordination of operations…

The story described the new facility as a 2-story, 100,000 square foot Y-shaped building on a plot of 35 acres, and included the following photograph.

As far as I can tell, at some point the company also re-established a manufacturing facility in New Jersey in Belle Meade.

An unscientific review of their newspaper advertisements suggests that sometime in the late 1960’s, while early in their tenure with Sterling Drug, Lehn & Fink added several more products under the “Lysol” name. These included the “Basin Tub and Tile Cleaner,” “Toilet Bowl Cleaner,” and “Deodorizing Cleaner,” all of which are pictured together with “Lysol Disinfectant” and “Lysol Spray” in this 1975 advertisement published in the “Ottawa Citizen.”

In January, 1988, Sterling Drug was acquired by Eastman Kodak Co. for $5.1 billion. Later that year a story in the August 18, 1988 edition of Rochester, New York’s “Democrat and Chronicle” announced that Lehn & Fink would continue as part of Kodak.

Eastman Kodak Co., heeding the advice of 26 internal task forces and disregarding Wall Street’s has decided to keep Sterling Drug’s L:ehn & Fink household products business.

Kay R. Whitmore, president of Kodak, told Lehn & Fink managers yesterday, in Montvale, N. J., that even though Kodak has had inquiries from would-be buyers, Lehn & Fink is too good a business for Kodak to lose.

That conclusion was reached, he said, after Kodak/Lehn & Fink teams reviewed 26 different aspects of Lehn & Fink to see if the business would be helped by being part of Kodak.

Some investors and Wall Street analysts had hoped Kodak would sell Lehn & Fink in order to reduce the debt it took on to finance the $5.1 billion Sterling purchase.”

Six years later, Kodak did sell Lehn & Fink which by then was simply called L & F Products. The sale was reported in Newark’s “Star Ledger” on September 27, 1994

Eastman Kodak Co. yesterday said it will sell the household product business of a New Jersey-based unit for $1.6 billion

Kodak said it will sell the $800 million household goods business of L&F Products to Rickett & Coleman, the London based maker of Woolite. The L&F operations included in the deal are best known for producing Lysol and Mop & Glo.

L&F, once known as Lehn & Fink, employs about 900 in New Jersey as part of its 2,400 person work force. About 640 people work at the Montvale headquarters and technical center – an additional 260 at a manufacturing and distribution plant in Belle Mead.

Eastman Kodak of Rochester N.Y., said it is divesting the L&F units as part of a strategy to return to its core imaging business… Reckitt & Coleman spokesman David Saltmarsh said the acquisition of L&F would increase his company’s foothold in the U.S market…

L&F’s manufactured-in-New Jersey products include Lysol disinfectants and cleaners, Resolve carpet and fabric cleaners, Mop & Glow and Beacon floor waxes, Chubs and Diapering baby wipes, Vanisol bathroom cleaner and Wet Ones moist towelettes. The products are sold in 37 countries.

Today Rickett continues to make products under the Lysol brand name with their marketing message relatively unchanged from 100 years ago.

Each of the eight subject bottles that were found is 4-inches tall; 1-1/2-inches in diameter and contains about 4-ounces. It exhibits 3 horizontal measurement lines, so it contains 4- 2 quart doses. According to the 1922 advertisement mentioned at the beginning of this post, that makes it the 25c size.

One bottle is embossed with the corporate name “Lysol, Inc.” and the Bloomfield N. J. location on its base. It also exhibits what is almost certainly the maker’s mark of the Owens Bottle Company, consisting of the letter “O” inside a square that was in use between 1919 and 1929. Recognizing that Lysol, Inc. was established in 1920 and the company moved to New Jersey the same year, puts the approximate date of the bottle between 1920 and 1929.

Another bottle includes the embossed location of “New York” along with the company name of Lysol, Inc. on its embossed base. It also exhibits what appears to be the maker’s mark of the Illinois Glass Company, consisting of an “I” inside a diamond that was in use from 1915 – 1929. So this bottle dates to the same time frame, from 1920 when Lysol, Inc. was incorporated up through 1929.

The others are simply embossed on the base with the words “Bottle Made in U S A.”

That being said, I suspect they date to the 1920’s as well. By 1930 advertisements began to picture a different style bottle, one with “Lysol” written horizontally near the shoulder.

An example of this later bottle type recently appeared for sale on the internet.

Oakland Chemical Company, Dioxogen

In the late 1800’s The Oakland Chemical Company manufactured and marketed hydrogen peroxide under the name “peroxide of hydrogen” and later, “hydrogen dioxide,” before finally settling on the name “Dioxogen” in 1901. They would go on to manufacture and market it under that name up through the late 1940’s and possibly into the early 1950’s.

The Dioxogyn story starts with a native New Yorker named James G. Timolat who was born in 1862. Throughout much of the 1880’s he was listed in the NYC directories at an address of 206 Greene Street in Manhattan with the occupation “dyes.” Recognizing that hydrogyn peroxide is a bleaching agent and a key component of hair dyes, it’s possible that Timolat’s familiarity with it dated back to these early days on Greene Street.

That being said, he was certainly familiar with it in 1890 when having established a Manhattan office on South Fifth Avenue (renamed West Broadway in 1897) he incorporated the Oakland Chemical Company to

manufacture and sell peroxide of hydrogen and other chemical compounds and products.

The incorporation notice was published in the May 29, 1890 edition of the “Brooklyn Daily Eagle.”

Timolat was named the company’s first president, a position he would hold until 1945 when he was succeeded by his son. James G. Timolat, Jr.

Around the same time he incorporated the business, Timolat also acquired property in the Greenpoint section of Brooklyn that would serve as the company’s manufacturing facility. The “Real Estate Transfer,” documented in the May 18, 1890 edition of “The Brooklyn Citizen,” located the property on the east side of Oakland Street (just north of Dupont Street) revealing the reasoning behind the company name.

Later that year Timolat transferred the property to his Oakland Chemical Company. The transfer was also documented in “The Brooklyn Citizen” on September 20, 1890.

At its onset the Oakland Chemical Company was one of at least 14 companies manufacturing and marketing peroxide of hydrogen at the time. A list of those 14 manufacturers that included the Oakland Chemical Company (No. 8) appeared as part of a study that was summarized in several pharmaceutical journals in late 1894/early1895.

So, almost certainly in an effort to distinguish Oakland’s product from the pack, Timolat changed its name to “Oakland Hydrogen Dioxide.” The announced name change began appearing in the pharmaceutical and medical journals in late 1894. The following, found in the December, 1894 edition of “The New York Medical Times,” was typical.

Over the next several years advertisements like the following one, found in several editions of a weekly publication called “The Philadelphia Polyclinic,” touted Oakland Hydrogen Dioxide under the heading “Oxygen By Inhalation.”

for diseases of the throat, lungs, respiratory tract, impoverished blood, defective assimilation, dyspepsia, melancholy, etc.,

Selling it in concert with

THE OAKLAND INHALING BOTTLE, a simple and effective vehicle for administering oxygen obtained from OAKLAND HYDROGEN DIOXIDE.

Then just after the turn of the century there’s another name change, this time to Dioxogen, the name embossed on the subject bottle. The announcement appeared in several 1901 editions of the “Dominion Medical Journal.”

The announcement read:

The change in name has become imperative both to protect the physician from inferior solutions and to preserve the reputation of the product itself.

The therapeutic value of Hydrogen Dioxide depends solely on the purity of the solution. In its manufacturing details, no drug or chemical demands more exact attention and none suffers more from the carelessness or ignorance of its physical qualities.

Dioxogyn will continue in the future as in the past to answer all the requirements of a perfect antiseptic and disinfectant.

Their new label appeared in this January, 1903 advertisement found in “The Chicago Medical Reporter.”

This new name and label along with advertisements stressing purity and reliability like the one below, found in the April, 1905 edition of the Maryland Medical Journal, all contributed to the company’s success in creating demand for their version of a relatively common product that was dressed up as a new/better alternative.

Up to this point, whether called Oakland Peroxide of Hydrogen, Hydrogen Dioxide or Dioxogen, the product was manufactured at the company’s Oakland Street factory, a factory described like this in the November 25, 1898 edition of the “Brooklyn Daily Times.”

The factory is a three-story brick building, 100 feet front and 50 feet deep. Adjoining the factory is the warehouse, a wooden building of the same height.

Their factory survived a fire in 1898 and as late as 1901 was even expanding as evidenced by this item that appeared in the September 28, 1901 edition of the Brooklyn “Times Union.”

Not long after the 1901 expansion the company changed direction and relocated their manufacturing arm to Staten Island. The move had certainly occurred by 1907 when a December 28th item published in the “Brooklyn Daily Eagle” announced that the company was in the process of leasing out their former plant location in Brooklyn.

BIG FACTORY LEASE

Stokes & Knowles have leased through their factory department, the building at the corner of Oakland and Dupont Streets for the Oakland Chemical Company to the Consolidated Paper Company for a term of years. The latter will occupy the building at once.

This undated photograph of their Staten Island factory located in Rossville, Staten Island, near its border with Charleston, appeared years later as part of a “Now & Then” story found in the January 20, 2002 edition of the “Staten Island Advance.”

According to another story written years later, this one in the November 4, 1955 edition of the “Staten Island Advance,” at its peak, likely in the late teens or early 1920’s, the plant was one of the largest in Staten Island with respect to both buildings and acreage encompassing 25 buildings, over 44 acres and employing between 250 and 300 people.

While the factory moved to Staten Island, the company headquarters remained on South Fifth Avenue/West Broadway in Manhattan until 1908. Later, they operated out of 98 Front Street and 10 Astor place before purchasing a building at 59 Fourth Avenue in 1919 where their headquarters remained listed until the 1950’s.

By the time their factory was operational in Staten Island the company’s advertisements pretty much focused on Dioxogyne’s antiseptic properties both as a wound clenser and mouthwash as evidenced by these two advertisements that both ran in several May/June, 1908 editions of the Syracuse N. Y. “Post Standard.”

Dioxogen continued to be advertised quite heavily in newspapers up through 1930 still with the same label and still touting it as an antiseptic and mouthwash.

Dioxogen , in 4, 10 and 20 oz bottles was still appearing in drug store price lists advertised in newspapers as late as 1949.

In the early 1930’s the Oakland Chemical Company entered the cosmetics field when they introduced Dioxogen Cream. This April 11, 1935 advertisement in Elmira N.Y.’s “Star-Gazette”ran under the heading Blackheads Don’t Live Here Anymore” and bragged:

By means of a new discovery – – DIOXOGEN CREAM – you can now bring out the hidden charm of your complexion. You can prevent blackheads and other skin blemishes. You can bring quick refinement to large, coarse open pores. Lines, discolorations and wrinkles will not show. Excessively oily or dry skin will be normalized, and sallow or muddy skin given new life and natural color…

Dioxogen Cream was included in newspaper advertised drug store price lists as late as 1948.

When exactly the Dioxogen name disappeared from the market is not clear, but it was certainly gone by 1955 when their Staten Island factory was put up for sale, not once but twice. This November 4, 1955 story published in the “Staten Island Advance,” described the company’s final days.

The Oakland Chemical Company plant, a Rossville mainstay for half a century, is on the auction block again – only a month after being sold by its original owners.

The Rossville factory, shut down in September after operating at a snail’s pace for six months, continues idle, no longer producing the hydrogen peroxide it made for 50 years…

Business declined steadily in recent years. When production stopped last May, only about 25 employees remained and many of the factory’s many buildings had fallen into disrepair.

A SKELETON force continued at work, liquidating the business, until its sale to an off-Island investor in September. The entrepreneur, whose identity remains undisclosed, planned to launch a chemical business but changed his mind after a discussion with European associates…

As a result the plant is up for sale again, with a $100,000 price tag. The price is far below the property’s actual valuation, but the plant’s specialized nature makes it a difficult one to sell…

The story was supported by this advertisement that appeared in several issues of the “Staten Island Advance” around that time.

The previously referenced “Now & Then” story found in the January 20, 2002 edition of the “Staten Island Advance” indicates that by 2002 all evidence of their Rossville factory had disappeared..

As far as I can tell, in Brooklyn, Oakland Street was later widened and renamed Mcguinness Blvd, leaving no sign of their former factory location there.

The bottle I found was blown in a mold with a tooled lip and contained 4 ounces. “Dioxogen” and “The Oakland Chemical Comp’ y” are embossed near the base in small lettering.

Likely from the early 1900’s, the bottle’s shape and size exactly match the bottle pictured in this March 13, 1910 “New York Tribune” advertisement.

Dr. Miles Restorative Nervine

Dr. Miles Restorative Nervine, later called simply Miles Nervine, was a patent medicine that was on the market from the mid-1880’s up through the late 1970’s. Originally sold in liquid form, beginning around 1930 it was available in effervescent tablet form as well.

Like many patent medicines, early on it was touted as a “cure” for just about anything nerve related, as evidenced by the wording in this 1886 advertisement.

Nervous Prostration, Sleeplessness, Sick and Nervous Headache. Backache, Dizziness, Morbid Fears, Hot Flashes, Nervous Dyspepsia, Dullness, Confusion. Hysteria, Fits, St Vitus’ Dance, Opium Habit, Drunkenness, etc., are cured by DR. MILES RESTORATIVE NERVINE.

By the turn of the century Nervine’s sales pitch focused more on the product’s sedative qualities, suggesting that it was the “restful sleep and sweet repose” it provided that addressed those nervous issues.

Neuralgia, headache, rush of blood to the head, numbness, an irritable temper, loss of appetite, sleepless nights, poor memory and a general run-down condition. There is no remedy so sure and safe as Dr. Miles’ Nervine. From the very first dose its soothing and quieting influence can be felt. Nothing in the past has ever equalled it in power of building up weakened nerve tissues and giving strength to the entire body. The weary sufferer who has walked the floor at night with throbbing temples and bursting brain, will find restful sleep and sweet repose, and awake feeling strong and refreshed. Dr. Miles’ Nervine searches out the weak parts wherever they may be hid and gives them new life and vigor.

Fifty years later, Nervine advertising sent pretty much the same message.

At one time or another most of us became upset and jittery due to overwrought nerves. This makes us irritable, restless and wakeful. You can’t do your work well the next day, if you toss and tumble through the night and don’t get the rest you need. At such times why not do as many thousands have done for over 60 years – try MILES NERVINE

Miles Nervine is a mild but effective sedative that helps soothe overwrought nerves and permits refreshing sleep. It has brought restful days and peaceful nights to thousands…

Those “restful days and peaceful nights” were brought about by bromide salts, an ingredient in Nervine that was outlawed by the FDA in the mid to late 1970’s. This brought about the end of the product when its maker at the time, Miles Laboratories, chose not to alter the formula.

So with that as background, what follows is the Dr. Miles Restorative Nervine story.

It’s namesake and inventor was Dr. Franklin Miles who was born outside of Cleveland, in Olmstead Falls, Ohio, sometime in the late 1840’s (1846, 1880 census; 1848, 1900 census and 1847, 1910 census).

According to “A Twentieth Century History and Biographical Record of Elkhart, Indiana,” by Anthony Deal, published in 1905, after earning a law degree from New York’s Columbia College he opted to change professions and studied medicine at Chicago’s Rush Medical College, Chicago Medical College and the Illinois Eye and Ear Infirmary.

Afterwards, he remained in Chicago for a year where, in 1874, he was listed as a physician with an address of 57 Blue Island Avenue. He’s not listed in Chicago the following year suggesting he moved to Elkhart where, in 1880, census records continued to list his occupation as “physician.”

Five years later, still in Elkhart, he established the Dr. Miles Medical Company to manufacture and sell several patent medicines under his name. The new company’s incorporation notice appeared in the November 7, 1885 edition of the “Indianapolis Journal.”

His initial menu of patent medicines included his “Restorative Nervine” along with”Dr. Miles’ Nerve and Liver Pills” and Dr. Miles’ Heart Cure.” All three are mentioned in this advertisement found in a September, 1886 document entitled: “Minutes of the Southern Illinois Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church” that was held in Vandalia, Illinois.

The following year, in the Fall of 1887, advertisements touting his Nervine, began appearing in several Indiana, Michigan and Ohio newspapers. One of the earliest appeared in the November 16, 1887 edition of the “Angola (Indiana) Herald.”

Ten years later newspaper advertisements for Nervine had spread from this small band of midwest states to every state and territory in the country, even appearing in several editions of Honolulu’s “The Hawaiian Star.”

Some, like the one below found on page 3 of the May 7, 1898 edition of the “St. Louis Post Dispatch,” encompassed an entire page complete with a headline, several promotional stories that appeared as genuine news, and testimonials of satisfied users.

Their advertising was not just focused on Nervine but promoted their other patent medicines as well. A three column long story promoting Dr. Miles’ New Heart Cure, appeared on the front page of the “Flint (Michigan) Journal” on November 8, 1898. The headline read:

According to the “Findings of Fact” in a 1906 court case, Dr. Miles Medical Co. vs. The May Drug Co., up through 1901 the Miles’ company had spent a total of $2,000,000 advertising its business.

The manufacturing plant required to meet the demand this advertising created was located at 109 – 115 West Franklin Street in Elkhart. A tour of the facility in June, 1900 made by members of the Indiana Pharmaceutical Association revealed that not only were the Miles medicines manufactured, packaged and shipped from there, but their printed material and newspaper advertising originated from there as well. A summary of the tour appeared in the June 25, 1900 edition of the “American Druggist and Pharmaceutical Record” most of which is reproduced below. So come along and enjoy the tour! (How often do you get the opportunity to tour an early twentieth century patent medicine factory?)

The main feature of the visit, was of course, the laboratory, where the Dr. Miles remedies are prepared, which is one of the most complete in the United States. It occupies nearly one-half block and has light on every side. It is built of beautiful pressed brick with ornamental front, and has large windows and art glass transoms on the first floor.

The members of the association entered the main entrance in the northeast corner and passed over the mosaic floor in the vestibule, up six stairs into the main office, covering 6000 feet of floor space, in which are located twenty-six clerks, with desks, typewriters, map cabinets, card indexes, and all the necessary paraphernalia for conducting a large business, and keeping track of a large corps of traveling salesmen. In connection with this office are large fire proof vaults and a private office.

Shipping Room

Passing out of the office into the shipping room the guests observed large piles of medicine ready for shipment to all parts of the world. The shipping room contains nearly 4,000 square feet of floor space, and is divided into two parts, one of which is entirely fire proof. Here is kept the main portion of manufactured stock ready for shipment to various warehouses, jobbers and retailers throughout the country. Here is found a time clock of the latest pattern for keeping account of the 150 employees. The large shipping doors, which are on a level with the bed of the trucks, attracted special attention. From this shipping room there is an average of one carload of goods in and out each working day throughout the year.

Press Room

The press room has a cement floor, on which the presses get the most solid kind of foundation. Here are four large Miehle two-revolution cylinder presses, which have an average speed of about 120,000 finished eight-page papers every day of ten hours, 720,000 per week, or 37,440,000 copies per year. These are cut, folded, pasted and stitched on the six folding machines, two cutting machines and two wire stitchers.

Engine Room

Passing down into the engine room, which is really on the first floor, or occupies a half basement and is located in the court between the two wings of the building, the party entered a room containing two 75 horse-power boilers, large Corliss engine, 125 horse-power capacity; dynamo for lighting and transmission of power; deep well pump, which supplies pure water for the entire plant, and also for the large tank in the tower on the top of the building. Adjoining this is a complete machine shop, carpenter shop, saws for making boxes, bottle washing apparatus, knife grinding machines’ etc. Passing out of the engine room into the main portion of the building and bottle storage rooms , which have a capacity for 25 carloads of bottles, the party noted the large coal bins, where the company can store eight carloads of coal at one time.

Compounding Department

Taking the elevator up to the fourth floor, the visitors reached the compounding department… The tablet making machinery here is taxed to its utmost at present and is to be enlarged. It now has a capacity of 200,000 dozen Pain pills per annum. The compounding room proper on the left is of the very latest pattern; all of the machinery is of the newest and best possible type that money can buy. The medicine is made in large steam jacket kettles and dropped into the tanks on the floor below, where it is stored and filled.

A number of the visitors now went up the middle stairway and out on the roof, and a few of the more athletic climbed the thirty-five foot ladder to the top of the tower, which gives a view of the city of Elkhart that is unsurpassed, it being the highest accessible point in the city. The roof of tower is 115 feet from the pavement.

Passing down through the compounding room to the third floor, the guests came to the tank room, which contains four 1500-gallon tanks for the storage of medicine…

Mailing Room

In the mailing room, on this floor, are employed about eight months of the year twelve young ladies to mail an average of about 10,000 circulars a day. A statistical visitor figued out that this is an aggregate of about $20,000 to $25,000 for one cent postage each year, and concluded that it was no wonder he had some demand for Dr. Miles’ remedies.

Box Department

In the wing on the third floor over the press room is located the paper box and tubing department. The visitors noted some special machinery in this department for making tubes for Dr. Miles’ Pain Pills, and also observed a number of young ladies mounting the pictures for the window displays. The scoring machines for making pasteboard cartons are also there.

Job Press Department

The second floor contains the composing and job press department, where there are at present four job and color presses, and the guests were informed that the company had just ordered an automatic press for this department which will have a capacity equal to all of the presses installed on the floor. The firm set up all their own matter, and have a stereotyping department, where they make the plates for newspaper advertising. This department has used up 300,000 pounds of metal in the last six months for newspaper plates and bases.

Advertising Office

The newspaper advertising office, which is located directly over the main office, was then visited. Here are checked all the advertisements in the newspapers. The house has advertisements running in 12,000 daily and weekly papers, covering the United States from Hawaii to Maine and from Florida to Oregon. This department is a little world of its own, and is one of the most important features of the institution…

The visitors were finally conducted down stairs, back into the main office and left most favorably impressed with the institution of the Dr. Miles Medical Co. .

In 1904, Indiana’s Factory Inspection Report indicated that the facility employed a total of 200 people (80 males and 120 females), and according to this February 13, 1902 price list found in the “Pharmaceutical Era,” they were manufacturing at least eight patent medicines in addition to Nervine.

Based on the above referenced 1906 court records company sales around that time amounted to $500,000 per year.

According to Deahl’s 1905 “History and Biographical Record of Elkhart, Indiana,” the success of Miles’ patent medicine business led to the expansion of his medical practice.

The medical laboratory of the Dr. Miles Medical Company, at Elkhart, is one of the finest and largest in the country. The success and broad usefulness of this institution led to another. In order to extend economical treatment of patients at their homes, Dr. Miles established, also at Elkhart, The Dr. Miles Grand Dispensary. Here skilled specialists sift evidence of disease and prescribe treatment by mail according to the science of Neuropathy – the latest and most successful development of the healing art. Dr. Miles is the originator of the neuropathic method…

As far as I can tell, Dr. Miles “Grand Dispensary” was established around the turn of the century, not in Elkhart, but in Chicago, at 201 – 209 State Street. (At the time 1900 census records found Dr. Miles living in a Chicago boarding house).

The 1900’s version of today’s tele-medicine, one of the first advertisements that I can find, referring to it as the “Grand Dispensary” of Chicago, appeared in the November 20, 1901 edition of a publication called “The Telescope.” It was headlined:

The ad went on to provide Miles’ sales pitch:

During the last two or three years, very great improvement has been made in the treatment of diseases of the heart. Cases formerly considered incurable , now rapidly yield to new remedies. The well-known specialist in treating heart diseases, Franklin Miles. M.D., L.L.B. founder of the “Grand Dispensary of Chicago,” will send $2.50 of his new Special Treatment free to any of our afflicted readers.

This liberal offer is for the purpose of demonstrating the unusual curative powers of his New Treatments for heart troubles, such as short breath, pain in the side, oppression in the chest, irregular pulse, palpitation or dropsy…

These Treatments are prepared expressly for each patient, as the result is very much more certain and satisfactory…Send at once to the “Grand Dispensary,” 201 to 209 State St., Chicago, Ill., for free treatment before its too late…

The Chicago location appears to be short-lived. As early as November 12, 1902, a Grand Dispensary ad in “The Telescope” mentioned both Chicago and Elkhart locations and by 1904 only Elkhart was mentioned in his ads. By then according to Indiana’s Factory Inspection Report the Elkhart Dispensary employed 47 people (9 men and 38 women).

Ironically, Dr.Franklin Miles moved to Florida in 1906 due to heath reasons. That being said, as late as 1922, the Elkhart directories continued to list him as president of both the Grand Dispensary and the Dr. Miles Medical Company. Two years later, in 1924, the Grand Dispensary disappeared from the directories.

Miles continued to be listed as president of the Dr. Miles Medical Company until his death in 1929. After his death the business continued under the Dr. Miles Medicine Company name until 1932 when it reorganized as the Dr. Miles Laboratories, Inc. The reorganization was announced in the September 15, 1932 edition of the “Indianapolis Star” under the heading “Incorporations.”

Several years later the company name was shortened to simply Miles Laboratories.

In 1935, the company began what became an exodus from their long-time home on Franklin Street when they relocated their advertising and printing department to McNaughten and Myrtle Streets. The announcement appeared in the March 3rd edition of the “South Bend Tribune.”

ELKHART FIRM BUYS PROPERTY

Negotiations for the purchase of the former Time-O-Stat plant at McNaughton and Myrtle Streets from the Minneapolis Honeywell Regulator Company were completed today by the Dr. Miles Laboratories, Inc., of Elkhart.

Removal of printing presses and other machinery to the new property from the company’s main plant of West Franklin Street will start the latter part of this month. The expansion will provide additional space for the firm’s manufacturing business.

Two years later, the June 25, 1937 edition of the “South Bend Tribune” announced the company was building a factory and relocating their entire operation to Myrtle Street as well.

MILES TO BUILD $325,000 PLANT

One of the largest building permits ever issued in Elkhart was that today to the Dr. Miles Laboratories, Inc., to erect a factory building at 1151 Myrtle Street, at a cost of $325,000. The permit fee was $807.40.

The company moved to the new location, pictured in the September 28, 1938 edition of the “Topeka (Indiana) Journal,” a year later.

The caption below the photo read in part:

The above picture shows the new home of “Alka-Selzer.” It is completely air conditioned and all of the products manufactured by the Miles Laboratories of Elkhart, Indiana, are made in this building…

When the plant is running at full capacity, there are employed about 600 people. 72 tons of “Alka-Selzer” is manufactured and shipped from here each week…

By this time, Miles Laboratories’ menu of products was growing exponentially and as the above caption suggests Alka-Seltzer, introduced in 1931, had become their top product and the one most closely associated with the company. That’s not to say Nervine became an afterthought as the company continued to advertise it liberally in newspapers during the 1940’s and 1950’s when it was promoted both individually and in connection with other Miles Laboratories’ products, as evidenced by the following two advertisements that appeared in 1945.

By the 1960’s Nervine advertisements had dropped off considerably but the product was still represented in a significant number of advertised drug store price lists.

The beginning of the end for Nervine came in 1975 with the release of a 308 page report detailing a study of nighttime sleep aids, daytime sedatives and stimulants commissioned by the FDA that was summarized in newspapers across the country on December 5, 1975. Specific to Nervine, the summary stated:

Boomides found in Miles Laboratories’ “Miles Nervine” and Miles Nervine Liquid,” marketed both as sleep aids and sedatives, were known to be poisonous at high dosage levels as early as the 19th century, the report said. There are numerous reports of cases of mental growth retardation among infants whose mothers took bromides during pregnancy, the report said.

That being said, in spite of the potential dangers, Nervine remained on the market as late as 1979. According to another story picked up by newspapers across the country on September 5th:

“There are still dangerous drugs you can get out there without a prescription, many containing bromides,” Wharton said. “One of the most common on the market is Miles Nervine. It is probably one of the most dangerous sedative drugs in that once you take it into the body, the body has very little capacity to get rid of it… It took a 17-year government battle to get the drug companies to take the bromide out.”

Finally, according to a February 15, 1980 story found in the Hollister, California “Free Lance,” Nervine met its end when Miles Laboratories refused to change their formula.

A popular by-gone preparation was MILES NERVINE. However Miles Nervine has gone the route of ORIGINAL formulas that made up DOANS PILLS, BROMO SELTZER, ANACIN, EMPIRIN, NYTOL AND SOMINEX. That route led to oblivion.

It is true that we no longer have Miles Nervine and Hadacol on pharmacy shelves, but Doans Pills, Bromo Seltzer, Anacin, Empirin, Nytol and Sominex all occupy prominent positions. The reason is their formulas changed while the brand names remain the same.

The change in formula occurred because the FDA considered the previous ingredients either unsafe or ineffective or both.

In the case of Miles Nervine the sedative ingredients were salts called BROMIDES. Bromides can cause a drowsiness or sedative effect but the amount to accomplish that can cause a skin rash and confusion. Bromide toxicity can occur in as little as 8 dose taking days.

In spite of Nervine’s troubles as late as 1977 the April 27th edition of the “South Bend Tribune” announced that Miles Laboratories, still headquartered in Elkhart, was producing record sales.

Sales of Miles Laboratories reached a new record high of $450 million during 1976, Dr. William Compton, board chairman and chief executive officer, told shareholders at the company’s 93rd annual meeting Tuesday night at Elkhart Central High School…

Referring to a 45-year growth, the board chairman reviewed the company’s sales growth from less than $2 million in the early 1930’s to the nearly half-billion mark, a compound rate of over 13 percent.

The story went on to provide this glimpse of the company at the time.

President Rowland G. Rose told the shareholders that Miles has 8,500 employees worldwide, 5,100 in this country and 3,400 abroad. The company operated through 29 subsidiary companies with 18 plants in the United States and 16 plants in 13 other countries.

Later that year the November 11, 1977 edition of the “South Bend Tribune” announced the sale of Miles Laboratories to AG Bayer.

Miles Laboratories, Inc., the city’s largest employer, is now owned by Rhinechem Laboratories, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Bayer AG, a conglomerate based in West Germany…

As of the Wednesday deadline the German firm had made early payment for the purchase of almost 3.7 million shares. Payment for such shares pursuant to the offer will be made as soon as practical.

Residents of the Elkhart area hold a considerable amount of the Miles shares being sold, resulting in a sudden influx of sizable amounts of cash into the community.

At its peak the Elkhart facilities encompassed a 26 acre campus that employed as many as 3,300 people. It would all vanish by 2011. A story in the February 20, 2019 edition of the “South Bend Tribune” provided some key dates with respect to its demise in Elkhart as well as in another Indiana facility located in Mishawaka, Indiana.

The subject bottle was was blown in a mold with a tooled lip. It’s 8 inches tall with a cross section of 2-1/2 inches x 1-1/2 inches and contains 8 ounces. It almost certainly dates back to the company’s early years, likely around the turn of the century. This labeled example recently appeared for sale on the internet.

Mrs. Winslow’s Soothing Syrup, Curtis & Perkins, Proprietors

Primarily marketed to mothers to solve the problems associated with teething in infants, Mrs. Winslow’s Soothing Syrup made its formal debut sometime in 1845. What mother could honestly resist the patent medicine’s sales pitch during the mid to late 19th Century.

ADVICE TO MOTHERS! – Are you broken in your rest by a sick child suffering with the pain of cutting teeth? Go at once to a chemist and get a bottle of MRS. WINSLOW’S SOOTHING SYRUP. It will relieve the poor sufferer immediately. It is perfectly harmless and pleasant to taste, it produces natural quiet sleep by relieving the child from pain, and the little cherub awakes “bright as a button.” It soothes the child, softens the gums, allays all pain, relieves wind, regulates the bowels, and is the best known remedy for dysentery and diarrhea…

Certainly too good to be true, the syrup wasn’t “perfectly harmless,” as the “natural quiet sleep” it produced was the result of the syrup’s active ingredient, morphine sulphate, an ingredient that wasn’t removed from the formula until 1916 when the nation’s food and drug laws along with pressure from both the medical profession and the public forced the revision. The updated product remained on the market until at least the early 1950’s.

Repotedly the brainchild of a nurse named Mrs. Charlotte N. Winslow, the origins of her syrup were described quite elegantly in a story found in the January, 1928 edition of a publication called “Drug Markets.”

During Andrew Jackson’s second administration, in the days when William Lloyd Garrison was being mobbed in Boston for his anti-slavery speeches and Abraham Lincoln was a struggling young lawyer, the babies of Freedom, Maine, were ushered into this world with the kindly assistance of Mrs. Charlotte Winslow, who, in the absence of professional aid, officiated on almost all such interesting occasions. Her fame as a skillful nurse soon became widespread throughout that portion of Maine so that she became the oracle consulted by mothers of the neighborhood upon all matters concerning the baby’s health. The teething period, especially, was a trying one, and in 1935, out of the very considerable knowledge and experience she had gained, she mixed a preparation which soon gained wide favor for its soothing effect on babies that were teething.

At first glance, I suspected that our Mrs. Winslow, along with her story, were both fabricated in an effort to market the syrup; a scenario that occurred over and over again with the patent medicine industry of the mid to late 1800’s. However, according to the “New England Historical and Genealogical Register,” dated 1901, there was a Charlotte Newman Noyes born on January 17, 1789 in Falmouth, Maine, and on October 21, 1804 she married Joseph Winslow of Freedom, Maine. So, it’s certainly possible that Mrs. Charlotte N. Winslow was serving as a nurse in Freedom, Maine during the 1830’s and 1840’s. That being said, other than lending her name to the syrup, how much she actually contributed to its development is open to speculation.

What we do know is that beginning in 1845, Charlotte’s son-in-law, Jeremiah Curtis (he married her daughter, Lucy) began advertising a soothing syrup locally in Bangor, Maine under Mrs. Winslow’s name. These early ads, the first of which appeared in the April 4th edition of the “Bangor Daily Whig and Courier,”announced it was for sale by the drug firm of J. Curtis, Jr. & Co., located at 4 Strictland’s Block, at the west end of the Kenduskeag Bridge in Bangor.

J Curtis Jr & Co. was not listed in Bangor’s 1843 directory, suggesting that Curtis started the company around the same time he began advertising Mrs. Winslow’s Soothing Syrup. J. Curtis Jr. & Co. was short-lived, and by 1846 Curtis had partnered with Benjamin A. Perkins establishing the drug firm of Curtis and Perkins. The company was certainly open for business by May of that year when this advertisement referencing their drug store began appearing in the “Bangor Daily Whig and Courier.”

Curtis & Perkins remained on Strictland’s Block where they were sometimes listed with an address of No. 4 Kenduskeag Bridge in the late 1840’s and No.1 Kenduskeag Bridge in the early 1850’s. Their business card found in Bangor’s 1851 directory included the N0. 1 Kenduskeag Bridge address.

In addition to serving as a wholesale and retail drug store, it appears the location also served as the early manufactory for Mrs. Winslow’s Soothing Syrup as well as several other patent medicines associated with the business. They included their Cramp and Pain Killer (known for removing pain in all cases), American Vermifuge (effectual destroyer of worms of all descriptions) and Spruce Chewing Gum (for removing tar and preserving the teeth).

This advertisement for both Mrs. Winslow’s Soothing Syrup and their Cramp and Pain Killer appeared in the October 11, 1852 edition of the “Bangor Daily Whig and Courier.”

In 1853, Curtis & Perkins moved from Bangor to New York City where they were up and running as early as July of that year as evidenced by this advertisement that appeared in the July 1, 1853 edition of a Schenectady, New York newspaper called “The Reflector.” Sounding introductory in nature the last paragraph of the ad stated:

…CURTIS & PERKINS, Druggists, formerly of Bangor, Me., now at 40 Cortlandt Street, New York. Agents now being established in all the principal towns in the state of New York.

While the business moved to New York City, according to the 1928 “Drug Markets” story, Perkins never did.

The gigantic nature of this step can scarcely be adequately judged today. Some idea of the conflict which must have taken place in the hearts and minds of all those connected with the project may be gathered from the fact that Benjamin Perkins, the partner, after considerable inner struggle decided that he would not go to New York. Two years later, in 1855, he decided to retire from the business and sold all his rights to his partner.

After Perkins sold out the company was initially listed in the NYC directories as Jeremiah Curtis or sometimes Curtis & Co. Always located somewhere in lower Manhattan, Curtis & Co. initially listed their address as 343 Broadway. Then sometime in the late 1850’s, the company moved to 13 Cedar Street. Around the same time Jeremiah’s son, George N., joined the firm and by 1860 the firm was listed in the directories as Jeremiah Curtis & Son. About 1863 the company relocated to 44 Dey Street where they remained until 1866 when they moved to their long-time location at 215 Fulton Street. A year later, a second son, Jeremiah W., joined the firm changing its name again, this time to Jeremiah Curtis & Sons.

While the company’s office/drug store was certainly located in Manhattan, information pertaining to their manufacturing facilities is not as clear. The 1928 “Drug Markets” story suggests that the building shown below, located across the East River in Brooklyn, at Hoyt and Third Streets, was operating as their factory beginning in 1855.

That being said, the business was not listed at that location until 1866. Prior to that, between 1853 and 1858, the business listed a Brooklyn location at 48 Fulton Street, so it’s possible that was their first factory location. Between 1859 and 1865 there’s no Brooklyn listing for the company suggesting that they may have been using the Manhattan locations of 13 Cedar and/or 44 Dey Street for manufacturing purposes during this time, but that’s entirely conjecture on my part.

By 1867 production was certainly occurring at the Hoyt and Third Street location when, according to January, 1868 court records, “Curtis v. Bryan,” the factory employed close to 100 persons and was producing 1.5 million bottles a year, a far cry from the annual production of 20,000 bottles a year mentioned in the 1853 advertisement shown above.

The 1928 “Drug Markets” story attributed this exponential growth to a healthy dose of advertising.

The first days in New York were long, anxious ones. A huge burden had been placed upon the preparation, originated by a humble country nurse. Would it survive or were the plans made by Curtis conceived on too large scale for a simple homemade remedy for the ills of babyhood? Curtis’ answer was to increase his advertising in outlying newspapers, place his preparation on a consignment basis in the hands of stock agents – the present day jobbers – throughout the country and organize a corps of thirteen salesmen.

The thirteen-person sales force, established to extend the syrup’s reach to unsettled, out-of-the way places included a colorful character named “Daredevil Dawson.”

Each man was equipped with a wagon drawn by two well groomed black horses. On the sides of each wagon was the inscription “Mother Winslow’s Soothing Syrup.” These men were the detail or contact men for the drug and general stores in the outlying districts, and they covered the entire country as far west as the Dakotas. “Daredevil” Dawson covered the far-western territory and a stock part of his equipment was a pair of “forty-fours” which he wore strapped around his waist. During local indian wars or upon visiting the trade in the “bad lands,” he added an armed cowboy to his retinue. It took him just a year to call on his territory, although most of the other twelve salesman managed to make two or three calls a year. Each man worked from some designated point which he used as a base for supply, thus solving the warehousing problem.

In addition to newspaper advertising, during the 1860’s and 1870’s the company also produced an annual publication called “Mrs. Winslow’s Family Almanac and Domestic Receipt Book.”

Aimed at the housewife and mother, the book included recipes and household tips interspersed with advertising copy for a number of Curtis & Sons’ concoctions. This page from the 1874 edition mixed in recipes for blueberry cakes, wheat muffins and corn bread among others with items touting Mrs. Winslow’s Soothing Syrup and a worm medicine called Brown’s “Vermifuge Comfite.”

In 1880 the company changed its name to “The Anglo-American Drug Company,” with the announcement appearing in the July 13th edition of the “New York Herald.”

It was around this time, actually in the early 1870’s, that the presence of morphine in the syrup was beginning to draw the attention of the medical profession as evidenced by an April, 1872 article in the “Pacific Medical and Surgical Journal” that warned of the dangers of morphine. Written by W. F. McNutt, M. D., of San Francisco, it said, in part:

MRS. WINSLOW’S SOOTHING SYRUP – A POISON

My attention was first called to the baneful effects and the enormous consumption of this nostrum by an article in the November, ’69, number of the California Medical Gazette, by Dr. Murray, U.S.A. Dr. Murray had been called to see a child aged six months, apparently in a dying condition from the effects of some narcotic poison. He found that this soothing syrup was the only medicine which had been administered, and of it the child had taken two teaspoonfuls within ten hours. There was remaining in the vial from which the two teaspoonfuls had been taken, ten drachms, which yielded, on analysis by a skillful chemist, nearly one grain of morphia and other opium alkaloids to the ounce of syrup….

Dr. Murray, in the article already referred to, says: “I have ascertained that there are about one hundred thousand two-ounce bottles of it sold annually in this city, containing about one hundred and eighty thousand grains of morphia, which are given annually to the babies of this State.”

If the babies of this State consume two hundred thousand ounces of soothing syrup, it is but fair to assume that there is seventy-five times that amount used in the whole United States, which would make 15,000,000 ounces of syrup, or about 14,000,000 grains of morphia. Setting aside the direct cost of the nostrum, it would be scarcely possible to estimate the damages which the people of the United States sustain indirectly from it use.

Despite these early warnings it wasn’t until the nation’s food and drug laws were enacted in 1906 that the company was forced to admit on its label that the syrup contained morphine. A pharmaceutical publication called “The Druggist Circular” took some credit for this change in their May, 1907 edition.

Our warning as to the danger of using morphine-laden Mrs. Winslow’s Soothing Syrup has been often repeated since 1883. In the CIRCULAR for that year, page 27, is an account of the death of infants caused by this nostrum, and the editorial comment: “We think that the sale of poisonous secret compounds should be forbidden.” In the same volume, page 155, is an account of another fatal poisoning by Mrs. Winslow’s Soothing Syrup. It is possible that our showing (in July 1904, page 139) that in Great Britain this nostrum could not legally be sold without a poison label, had more than a little to do with the enactment of that portion of the federal pure food and drugs act which provides for the statement on the label of the quantity of morphine, etc., contained in the preparation of the package.

In New York City a ruling by the Board of Health took it a step further, prohibiting the sale of morphine laced products without a prescription. This advertisement run by the Riker drug chain included Mrs. Winslow’s Soothing Syrup on a list (6th from the bottom) of products that fell under this umbrella. The ad was published in the September 2, 1910 edition of the “Brooklyn Daily Eagle.”

That same year, The federal government put Mrs. Winslow’s Soothing Syrup first on a list under the heading “Baby Killers,” a list that was published in both medical as well as general publications. This version of the list, found in the January 7, 1911 edition of a weekly magazine called “La Follettes,” followed the list up with the following questions:

Readers, what do you think of a list like this? Are you using them, feeding the little ones opium, morphine, cloral hydrate and like products in order to stupefy and not help their suffering?

With both reputation and sales likely in a free-fall, the company finally reacted sometime in 1915 and resolved to remove the morphine from their syrup. The December, 1916 edition of the “Practical Druggist” picks up the story from there.

The new manager and treasurer of the Anglo-American Drug Co., manufacturers of Mrs. Winslow’s Soothing Syrup, is C. C. Schooley, an accountant and efficiency engineer of wide reputation. When he took charge about fifteen months ago, it was with the resolute determination to re-establish the old favorite as a modern favorite with the mothers of the land.

Mr. Schooley’s first step was to engage chemists to eliminate from the formula the narcotic and alcoholic contents of the old product, at the same time retaining the many virtues of the preparation. The intent of the new formula is to quiet the child through more normal processes than by opiates and stimulants. Mild laxatives, digestives and correctives, with aromatic oils, are among the medicinal qualities of the new product…

Uniformity of product is also assured under the new order of things, replacing the “haphazard” brewing methods of former days…About the only trace of former days is the name and buff label, which the management aim to put back on the map again with a great moral prestige to boot…

The new product was placed on the market January 1st…

A national advertising campaign aimed at promoting the new formula was implemented in September/October of 1916. This October 8, 1916 “Detroit Free Press” advertisement bragged:

IT IS ABSOLUTELY NON-NARCOTIC

and does not contain opium, morphine nor any of their derivatives.

The ad even named the ingredients of the re-worked formula, a formula that sans narcotics now focused more on issues related to bowel movements and less on teething.

The reasoning behind the eight month delay between the January release of the newly developed formula and the September/October national advertising campaign suggested that the company’s motives behind their new formula were not altogether altruistic. According to the September 28, 1916 edition of an advertising publication called “Printers Ink.”

This new product has been on the market since January 1st of this year. But the company has only started to advertise it. And here is the one flaw in its new course as we see it. No particular efforts have been made to take the old product off the market and replace it with the denatured goods. Rather an active eight-months campaign was made to move the old goods, to make way for the new. Where jobbers or dealers asked the replacement of the old with the new this has been done, but such action has not been courted deliberately.

After revamping the formula, by 1919 the company also eliminated the word “soothing” from the name, typically referring to it in advertisements as simply Mrs. Winslow’s Syrup. The change is reflected in this February 12, 1919 ad found in Oregon’s “Daily Astorian,” one of the earliest I could find.

Although the company was attempting to change the product’s image it appears that the country was apparently slow to come around. This is exemplified by a lawsuit that arose five plus years after the formula change. It was described in the June 1, 1921 edition of the “New York Tribune.”

Alleging that the integrity and reputation of that well known children’s pacifier, Mrs Winslow’s Soothing Syrup, is attacked in the motion picture “The Nut,” in which Douglas Fairbanks portrays the title part, the Anglo-American Drug Company, manufacturer of the syrup, filed a suit for $100,000 damages in the Supreme Court yesterday.

The United Artists’ Corporation, owned and controlled by Fairbanks, Mary Pickford and Charlie Chaplin, is the principal defendant, the individual motion picture stars also being named as defendants, along with D. W. Griffith and Hiram Abrams, the producers, and Kenneth Davenport, William Parker and Lotta Woods the authors of the picture that has aroused the ire of the guardians of Mrs. Winslow’s preparation.

The action is based on a leader or caption used in “The Nut” in a scene of an explosion of miniature shells fired by a character named Charlie Jackson. The explosion throws several people to the floor, and they are apparently rendered unconscious, whereupon there is flashed on the screen the caption: “As a sleep producer Charlie’s incense has it all over Winslow’s Soothing Syrup.”

According to the 1928 “Drug Markets” story, by the late teens changes to more than just the formula were taking place.

In 1918, due to fluctuations brought on by war conditions, the company decided to have its product manufactured by another and to confine itself to sales exclusively.

As far as I can tell the new manufacturer mentioned above was the Lafayette Drug Company of Jersey City, N. J., and their relationship with the Anglo-American Drug Company continued even after the war.

As late as 1939 the Anglo-American Drug Company, still located at 215 Fulton Street in Manhattan, remained focused on the sale of the syrup as evidenced by this advertisement that appeared that year in the November 4th edition of the “Hobart (Oklahoma) Saturday Newspaper.”

At the same time, according to a “History of Drug Containers and Their Labels,” by George Griffenhagen and Mary Bogard, published in 1999, the Lafayette Drug Company was still manufacturing Mrs Winslow’s Syrup as late as 1945.

It’s possible that sometime in the early 1940’s the Lafayette Drug Company actually took over the entire operation. While I can’t confirm this as fact, it’s certainly suggested by the labeled Mrs Winslow’s Syrup vial pictured below that appears on the Smithsonian Institution’s website. It names the Lafayette Drug Company as the product’s distributor and refers to them as :

Successors to Curtis & Perkins and Anglo-American Drug Company.

As late as 1951, Mrs. Wilson’s Syrup was occasionally listed in drug store price lists found in newspaper advertisements.

Over the years I’ve found two vials embossed MRS. WINSLOW’S SOOTHING SYRUP. Blown in a mold, they match this description found in the 1867 court case referenced previously.

The preparation is put up in glass bottles, about five inches in length, and one inch in diameter, with the words “Mrs Winslow’s Soothing Syrup” stamped upon them.

Also embossed on the subject bottles is the company name: CURTIS & PERKINS, PROPRIETORS.

At some point, embossing on the Winslow bottles was changed to include “Anglo American Drug Co., Successors to Curtis and Perkins.” This suggests that the subject vials date no later than 1880 when the company name was changed to the Anglo-American Drug Company.

On a Final Note:

It appears that the Brooklyn building at Hoyt and Third Streets that housed the Mrs. Winslow factory remains to this day. With the exception of a relocated front entrance (from the middle to the near-end) the current building matches identically (sans the air conditioners) with the photo of Curtis & Sons factory building pictured in the 1928 “Drug Markets” story.

Hicks Capudine For All Headaches, Colds, Gripp, Etc.

As the embossing on the above bottle suggests, Capudine was a patent medicine promoted to supposedly cure headaches, colds, la grippe, neuralgia, sick headache, nervous headache, acidity, flatulency and indigestion pains. Manufactured in Raleigh, North Carolina, it was on the market from the mid-1890’s up through the mid-1960”s.

Early on it was marketed to the general public under the name “Hicks Capudine,” while at the same time it was marketed to the medical profession as “Elixir Capu-Hicks.” So, whether you purchased a bottle of it over the counter as Hicks Capudine or obtained a prescription of Elixir Capu-Hicks from your local druggist, you were getting exactly the same formula.

In later years it was advertised and sold as Liquid Capudine.

The medicine’s namesake, Henry T. Hicks, was born in Wake County, North Carolina on March 4, 1866. At the age of 20, Hicks was listed in the 1866 Raleigh city directory (the earliest I have access to) with the occupation “drug clerk.” A feature on Hicks published years later in the August 10, 1915 edition of Raleigh’s local newspaper, “The News and Observer” provided a little more information.

Before making his “rep.” as Capudine millionaire, he was a pill-roller for John S. Pescud and later worked for Mr. James McKinnon.

Both Pescud and McKinnon were listed as druggists with an address of 118 Fayetteville Street in early Raleigh directories; Pescud in both 1886 and 1887 and McKinnon in 1887. So suffice to say, Hicks was certainly working in the drug business by the mid-1880’s and possibly earlier.

On July 3, 1893 Hicks, in partnership with W. N. Snelling, opened his own drug store in Raleigh at 101 Fayetteville Street, on the corner of Morgan Street. An item announcing the store’s opening appeared the day before in the July 2, 1893 edition of “The News and Observer.”

Messrs. Snelling & Hicks will open in the McGee stand, corner of Fayetteville and Morgan Streets, on Monday morning a complete line of drugs, toilet and fancy goods, cigars, etc.

Opening day was followed up with another announcement, this one found in “The Evening Visitor” on July 12 1893.

Less than two months after opening the store Hicks and Snelling were manufacturing medicinal products under the Hicks name, as evidenced by this August 30, 1893 advertisement that mentioned a “delicious, nutritious tonic” called “Hick’s Beef, Wine and Iron.”

Hicks’ partnership with Snelling lasted a little over a year at which time Snelling retired, selling his interest to Berry C. Rogers. The January 25, 1895 edition of “The Evening Visitor” reported the change in ownership.

Messrs. Henry T. Hicks and B. C. Rogers have purchased Mr. W. N. Snelling’s interest in the drug business of Snelling and Hicks and will continue to conduct the business upon the motto of the old firm, viz.- Precision, promptness and politeness.

As far as I can tell, it was under the name of Hicks and Rogers that mention of Hicks Capudine began to appear in local newspaper advertisements. The first one I can find was published in the January 10, 1896 edition of “The News and Observer.”

A year later, the March 14, 1897 edition of “The Raleigh Daily Tribune” announced that Hicks and Rogers had been dissolved, with Hicks taking over the business.

Mr.Henry T. Hicks is now successor to Hicks & Rogers. He has acquired the entire interest in the business. It is now Henry T. Hicks, instead of Hicks & Rogers.

Over the next several years Hicks ran the entire operation out of the Fayetteville Street drug store that not only stocked a variety of drugs, chemicals and toilet articles but according to an April 19, 1900 item in “The Raleigh Times,” also included a soda fountain.

Mr. Henry T. Hicks’ soda fountain is now running full blast and all the most delightful drinks of the season are being served.

At the same time he was manufacturing Hicks Capudine along with other products he sold under the Hicks name, one of which, Hicks’ Almond Lotion, appeared in several September, 1900 advertisements found in “The News and Observer.”

On January 5, 1901 “The News and Observer” reported that Hicks had added a second drug store to his operation. Located several blocks away, at the corner of Fayetteville Street and East Martin Street, it was housed in what was called the Tucker Building.

It was learned on the streets yesterday that Mr. Henry T. Hicks had bought out the McGee Drug Store in the Tucker building

It could not be learned what the terms of the trade were. Mr. Hicks who was seen in regard to the matter stated that the announcement was true, but that the terms had not been agreed upon and it would be impossible to make any further statement in regard to the matter. It was learned however that the drug store in the Tucker building will be kept open and Mr. Hicks will be in charge of it.

This early post card depicts the Martin and Fayetteville intersection with the Tucker building drug store clearly visible on the right-hand side. Dated 1899, the post card depicts the pharmacy a year or so prior to Hicks taking charge.

(Note: The post card is part of the Durwood Barbour Collection of North Carolina Postcards found in the North Carolina Collection Photographic Archives, Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.) http://ncarchitects.lib.ncsu.edu/B002969

At about the same time he took over the Tucker Building drug store, another story, this one published in the February 1, 1901 edition of “The Morning Post” announced that Hicks had organized the Henry T. Hicks Company to manage both store locations.

Henry T. Hicks Company

Mr. Henry T. Hicks has bought the McGee Pharmacy, corner Martin and Fayetteville Streets, and organized both stores under the company name of the Henry T. Hicks Company, a corporation authorized to conduct a retail, wholesale and manufacturing drug business.

Mr. Hicks who is president of the company, will stay at the up-town store and act as general manager of the business. Mr N. C. Brandon, vice-president of the company, will manage the Tucker Building pharmacy.

The business was listed this way in the 1903 Raleigh city directory.

Later the company would add two more drug stores; the Wake Drug Store (301 Fayetteville) circa 1911 and the College Court Pharmacy (1900 Hillsboro Street) in the mid-teens.

Around this same time that the Henry T. Hicks Company was established, a January 10, 1891 item in “The News and Observer” announced that Hicks had also incorporated another new company, this one called the Hicks Chemical Company.

The Hicks Chemical Company, of this place was chartered yesterday with a capital stock of $2,000. The incorporators are Mr. Henry T. Hicks, Mrs Ida S. Hicks and Mr. W. N. Snelling. The object of the corporation is to manufacture and sell chemicals, drugs and medicines, and has power to copyright its formula and trademarks.

This company owned the rights to Hicks Capudine that at the time was apparently being manufactured at one or possibly both of the Hicks drug stores.

This changed in 1904 when the Capudine Chemical Company was established. The announcement appeared in the February 9, 1904 edition of “The News and Observer.”

The final steps in the organization of the Capudine Chemical Company were taken yesterday at a meeting of the incorporators here… The company has purchased the business of the Hicks Chemical Company, and will push this as fast as possible over the entire country.

“The News and Observer” provided a little more detail in their September 14th edition.

The Capudine Chemical Company is the name of a corporation that has recently been organized to push the manufacture and sale of the headache remedy, “Capudine” with a capital stock already subscribed of $50,000…

The company would have its principal office in Raleigh, N. C., and its Southern depot will be located in Atlanta, Ga., under the charge of Mr. George L. Walker, who is an experienced salesman, and gave up a position with one of the largest drug houses in the South to take charge of this business. From Atlanta Ga., the territory will be gradually extended over the South. It is proposed in a few months to establish a western branch either at St. Louis or Chicago and a northern branch either in New York, or Boston, Mass.

The officers of the company are: Mr. Ashley Horne, president; W. W. Mills, vice-president; and Mr. Henry T. Hicks as secretary-treasurer and business manager… Mr. Hicks is the discoverer of this remedy, and starting without a dollar of capital behind it, save what he put in it himself, with his energy and business sagacity, aided largely by the merits of this remedy, has brought it to its present large output. This remedy is at present sold in the states of Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Tennessee and Alabama. The remedy will be manufactured in Raleigh and contracts for advertising and with salesman are now being made…

The new company, now independent of the drug stores and entirely focused on the manufacture of Capudine, was listed with an address of 209 S. Salisbury up through 1909 after which they moved to 122-1/2 East Martin Street. The company remained headquartered in Raleigh and continued to list that address up through at least 1960.

True to their word over the next ten years Capudine’s reach increased to the point where, by 1915, their newspaper advertisements were appearing throughout the entire eastern half of the country; as far north as Maine and extending as far west as Texas and New Mexico.

It was also around this time that Hick’s Capudine was drawing the attention of the American Medical Association who, in their October 17, 1908 Journal, took exception to an ingredient in Capudine called antipyrin.

This puts the nostrum in the dangerous class of “patent medicines,” increasingly common of late, in which a heart depressing drug is present but one, unfortunately, which the Food and Drug Act does not require to be specifically named on the label.

The February, 1920 edition of the “Michigan Food and Drug Monthly” further clarified the issue.

Capudine is a dangerous Nostrum. It contains Antipyrin and Salicylic Acid. The Pure Food and Drug Act requires Patent Medicine Manufacturers to print their formula on the package if the remedy contains Acetanilid, which is a heart depressing drug. Antipyrin belongs to the same family, is a similar drug and depresses the heart; but as yet the law does not require the printing of the latter drug on the label… This drug is also a habit forming drug, which alone should debar it from good society.

The AMA Journal went so far as to reference the following September 15, 1908 item found in the “Atlanta Constitution.”

FUNERAL OF MRS WINBURN

Her Death Was Due to Overdose of Capudine

The sudden death of Mrs. Joe Winburn at Mansfield yesterday, was due to an overdose of capudine for periodic headaches. She was the wife of Rev. Joe Winburn, Baptist pastor at Mansfield, and leaves five small children. the oldest being 9.

In response, the Capudine Chemical Company dug in, running advertisements promoting the fact that Capudine did not contain Acetanilid with no mention of the fact that it did contain its cousin and equally dangerous heart depressant, antopyrin. One such advertisement appeared in the December, 1919 edition of “The American Druggist.”

it wasn’t until the early 1940’s that the antipyrin issue caught up with them when, in 1942 the company agreed to a “Cease and Desist Agreement” with the Federal Trade Commission that read in part:

The Capudine Company…will forthwith cease and desist from disseminating any advertisements which fail to reveal that the said preparation should not be used in excess of the dosage recommended; that its frequent or long continued use may be dangerous, causing skin eruptions or mental derangement; and that it should not be taken by or administered to children; Provided however, that such advertisements need only contain the statement: “CAUTION, USE ONLY AS DIRECTED,” if and when the directions for use, wherever they appear on the label, in the labeling, or in both label and labeling, contain a warning or caution to the same effect.

The Capudine Chemical Company further agrees not to publish or cause to be published any testimonial containing any representation contrary to the foregoing agreement.

The now almost universal phrase “Use Only as Directed” began appearing in Capudine ads shortly afterwards as evidenced by this typical 1945 advertisement.

As the above advertisement demonstrates by this time the company had pretty much dropped the “Hicks Capudine” name in favor of “Liquid Capudine” or sometimes “Capudine Liquid.” This began in earnest in the early 1930’s when the company began stressing the point that it’s liquid form made it faster acting. This advertisement found in the September 19, 1932 edition of the “Nashville (N.C.) Times” was typical.

Another advertisement from the 1930’s, made it clear that quicker was better, especially when you’ve got a hangover.

This ultimately led to another complaint by the Federal Trade Commission, this one for false and misleading advertising. The complaint was ultimately dropped in 1950 when, according to an October 5th story in “The Winston-Salem Sentinel,”

The Capudine Company promised not to represent Hicks Liquid Capudine as a pepper-upper for hangovers, or that it acts quicker than other compounds because it is in liquid form.

Henry T. Hicks served as president of the firm until he passed away in 1940 after which two other long term members of the firm served as president; Edwin Yates from 1940 to 1954 and Walter S. Fleming from 1954 to 1960.

The company was ultimately sold to a Florida based firm in 1960. The sale was reported in the April 21, 1960 edition of “The News and Observer.”

One of North Carolina’s oldest businesses, the Capudine Chemical Company, has been sold to Pearson Pharmacal Company of Miami, it was announced here Wednesday.

The transaction, arranged by Raleigh broker John A. Park, Jr., adds “Capudine Liquid Headache Reliever” to a number of pharmaceutical products now being manufactured and marketed by the Florida firm.

The story went on to confirm that the Hicks family remained active in the company right up until the sale.

Mrs. Harry T. Hicks, wife of one of the founder’s sons, is vice president of the Raleigh concern. Henry T. Hicks, III, grandson of the founder, is a director. W. S. Fleming, who has been with the firm for 47 years, is president.

On a final note, a story found in the November 21, 1959 edition of the “Greensboro (N.C.) Record” suggests the Capudine Chemical Company was still quite active at the time of sale. The story, that ends on a humorous note, follows.

The Capudine Chemical Company, manufacturers of headache medicine throughout the world, got an initial order from Hawaii the other day. The Hawaii buyer mentioned in his ordering letter that the youngest state in the American Union was happy to do business with an established firm in one of the original 13 states. Mrs. Harry Hicks, manager of the Capudine firm, personally acknowledged the order with a letter welcoming the new customer- and marked the invoice “paid in full,” in appreciation of this and expectation of many more orders.

A friend, to whom Mrs. Hicks related the Hawaiian deal, suggested it might have significance other than mere trade expansion. Hawaii has been there as long as the North American continent. Apparently its people did not need headache medicine until it changed status from a territory and assumed responsibilities as a sovereign state.

Capudine was included in sporadic drug store advertisements and price lists as late as 1966. When it completely disappeared from the drug store shelves is not clear.

The bottle I found was blown in a mold and exhibits a tooled lip. It’s 5-3/4 inches tall, with a 2 inch x 3/4 inch cross section and contains approximately 2 ounces.

In matches the bottle pictured in a series of 1914 advertisements published in the “Atlanta Journal,” though blown in a mold it likely dates closer to the turn of the century.

At the time capudine was being sold to the public in 3 different size bottles; small (10c), medium (25c) and large (50c). I have to believe that at 2 ounces, the subject bottle is the small size.

An October 18, 1950 advertisement suggests that other than transitioning to a screw top, the bottle design itself changed little over time. The ad also continued to mention three different sizes. Even the costs. 15c/30c/60c didn’t change all that much.

The Maltine Mfg. Co., Chemists, New York

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.

Pond’s Extract

The Pond’s Extract story is thoroughly entwined with the shrub hamamelis virgiinics, or “witch hazel.” It’s early reputation as a medication was summarized like this in the January 3, 1906 edition of a publication called “Printers Ink.”

The shrub hamamelis virginics, popularly known as “witch hazel,” is native to North America alone, and found in quantities only in New Hampshire, Connecticut and New York State. Long before the Whiteman came it was a medicinal herb valued by the Indians, and when New England was settled the whites soon learned to value it too. For years “witch hazel” held a place among the home remedies, grandmother’s “yarbs” being prepared by boiling in tea kettles. In the 40’s this remedy was taken in hand by (Theron T.) Pond at Utica, N. Y., a place where the shrub was then found in abundance, and converted into a stable liquid through distillation and the use of a preservative. For distilled witch hazel spoils after a few days unless fixed with alcohol, the preservative used in Pond’s Extract.

Around the same time, an address by John V. Shoemaker, M.D., delivered April 26, 1905 before the Danbury Medical Society on the “Practical Value of Old Remedies,” provided this turn of century view of witch hazel’s therapeutic value.

Witch Hazel, an excellent old-time remedy, has a well-defined range of usefulness within which it is without a rival. Externally and internally it is sedative and astringent. It is used as lotion and ointment in many diseases and injuries of the skin, in leg ulcer and varicose veins and varicocele.

The distilled extract of hamamelis is a valuable application to sprains and bruises. Hamamelis is very useful in checking epistaxis, bleeding sockets after the extraction of teeth, bleeding hemorrhoids and many other forms of hemorrhage. An ointment containing witch hazel is of service in burns, eczema, erysipelas, sunburn, seborrhea , acne, etc. A diluted fluid extract of hamamelis makes an effective lotion in hyperidrosis. A witch hazel lotion or ointment is an excellent application in fissure of the anus. When given internally this remedy exerts the same astringent and sedative action and is highly valued in the treatment of acute and chronic diarrhea, dysentery, hemorrhage from internal organs, purpura, hemorrhagic, varicose veins and ulcers and varicocele.

Today’s uses, while toned down quite a bit, still run along the same lines. According to webmd.com,

Applying witch hazel to the skin is the most common way it is used – and the safest.

Witch hazel may bring some relief from hemorrhoids or skin irritations and lessen minor bleeding. Witch hazel extracts contain antioxidant compounds that may protect against sunburn and aging from the sun.

Under the Pond’s name a witch hazel extract was on the market for just about 100 years from the mid 1840’s up through the late 1940’s.

So, with that as background the Pond’s Extract story begins with a man named Theron T. Pond. It’s a story that quite possibly may never have been told except for the actions of a quick thinking Hudson River boat captain. The details appeared in the November 3, 1830 edition of the “Poughkeepsie Journal.”

The Steam Boat North America. – By the following article it will be seen that an accident which might have led to serious consequences, occurred to the North America on Thursday… On her passage from New York to Albany, when opposite Sing Sing, it was observed that the boat rolled more than usual. The captain perceiving it, immediately ran an examination and found in the hold a considerable quantity of water, which he discovered to be increasing, notwithstanding the free use of the force pumps. He then resolved to avail himself of the first landing to secure the safety of his passengers. The water continuing to increase, he, without hesitation, ran her on the flats at Grassy Point a short distance below Stony Point. Shortly after the steam-boat Gen. Jackson hove in sight, a signal being made Capt. Van Wart came immediately alongside and received the passengers , and afterwards landed them at Newburgh, where they remained until the New Philadelphia arrived from New York, when they proceeded on to their respective destinations.

At a meeting of the passengers held on board the Gen. Jackson, a vote of thanks was unanimously passed to Capt. Benson and all the officers attached to the boat, for their skill, prudence, presence of mind and attention to the comfort of their passengers which was displayed on this occasion.

The vote of thanks was signed by 16 passengers, one of whom was Theron T. Pond.

Pond would go on to hold several unrelated occupations before beginning what would be a six-year stint manufacturing and selling his witch hazel extract in Utica, New York. Embossing on the subject bottle suggests he began its manufacture in 1846.

During this time it was advertised in newspapers under several different names. The first ad I can find appeared in a number of November, 1847 editions of the “New York Tribune” referring to it as “Pond’s Pain Destroyer.” By that time Pond had engaged several wholesale agents in New York City so the 1846 start date embossed on the bottle is certainly within the realm of possibility.

A year later newspaper advertisements added “Healing Extract,” sometimes “Vegetable Healing Extract,” to the title as evidenced by ads found in the “Buffalo Daily Republic” on May 25, 1848 and the “Fayetteville (N.C.) Weekly Observer” on January 23, 1849.

In 1852, six years after the introduction of his Pain Destroyer and Healing Extract, Pond passed away. At some point prior to his death he had become acquainted with Dr. Frederick Humphreys who some internet sources suggest was his personal physician. According to a story in the June, 1906 edition of “The Practical Druggist” Pond sold the rights for his healing extract to Humphreys. The story goes on to suggest that it was Humphreys who came up with the idea of adding alcohol as a way to stabilize the mixture.

Over fifty years ago Dr. Frederick Humphreys, whose reputation for his system of homeopathic medication is universal, removed to Utica, N.Y., where he practiced medicine successfully. Here he came in contact with a Dr. Pond, who interested him in the subject of manufacturing an extract of witch hazel. Pond already had an extract in the local field which had quite a reputation in the vicinity. Dr. Humphreys devised the means of fixing the virtues of this preparation, its ephemeral condition being its chief drawback. Dr. Humphreys bought the rights of manufacture and the name and entered into the systematic production of Pond’s Extract, retaining the name for its apparent trade-mark value.

Humphrey’s days as a physician also date back to sometime in the 1840’s as evidenced by this advertisement that appeared in the May 22, 1849 edition of the “Buffalo Daily Republic.”

In 1855 Humphreys, then located in Auburn, New York, was selling a number of what he called Specific Homeopathic Medicines. That year, this advertisement touting his medicines appeared in several July and August editions of the “Buffalo Daily Republic.”

The ad went on to list 15 medicines that targeted specific conditions such as fever pills, diarrhea pIlls headache pills, etc. and stated:

The MEDICINES are prepared in the form of MEDICATED SUGAR TABLETS, neatly put up in boxes properly numbered and labeled. Fifteen such boxes, containing many hundreds doses, are enclosed in a neat portable case, enclosing a manual, giving a precise description of the diseases treated, and directions for giving the medicines, diet, etc….

F. HUMPHREYS & CO., Auburn, N.Y

By 1858 Humphreys had partnered with Azariah Palmer and moved his operation from Auburn, New York south to New York City where the 1858 – 1859 directory listing for Humphrey & Palmer made it clear the partnership was selling both Humphreys Specific Homeopathic Medicines and Pond’s Extract at 562 Broadway in Manhattan.

Palmer was a friend of Pond who, according to several internet sources also claimed rights to Pond’s Extract.

The partnership was short-lived and by 1860 Humphrey & Palmer had been replaced at the 562 Broadway location by Humphreys & Co. with Palmer no longer mentioned. The business operated under the F. Humphreys name from 1860 to 1864 during which time they continued to advertise the remedy, now typically as Pond’s Extract of Hamamelis, as evidenced by this January 9, 1862 “Brooklyn Daily Eagle” ad.

Things changed in 1865 when, according to New York State Appellate Court records in the case of “Frederick Humphreys against Francis W. Hurtt,” the business incorporated in March of that year as the Humpherys’ Specific Homeopathic Medicine Company, with Frederick Humphreys, Francis Hurtt and Abia Selover all equal share holders. Later that year things changed again when Palmer re-entered the picture and Selover was bought out. According to the court records, in December, 1865:

by a mutual concession of stock by them made to one Azariah S. Palmer, the latter became a member of said corporation and that Humphreys and Hurtt afterwards, by purchase, became the owners in equal proportions of the remaining interest of Selover in the stock and assets of the company.

The court records go on to say that when the dust settled, both Humphreys and Hurtt each owned 44% of the company and Palmer the remaining 12% with the company itself consisting of the following two branches of business:

The exclusive right of manufacturing and selling a medicine called “Pond’s Extract” and a similar right in a certain medicine called “Humphreys’ Specific Homeopathic Medicine.”

Humphreys was named president with Hurtt serving as treasurer and general manager. Palmer remained in upstate New York and several internet sources suggest that his stake in the corporation was in exchange for him giving up any claim he had to the Pond’s name.

During this time the abbreviated name of simply “Ponds Extract,” most often appeared in their advertisements, as evidenced by this 1868 advertisement that touted both Humphreys Specific Homeopathic Medicines and Ponds Extract. (Note Humphreys’ medicines had more than doubled in number from 15 to 34)

The appellate court records go on to say that in December, 1872 Humphreys and Hurst, not getting along, agreed that the two branches of the business should be separated and the assets divided equally between them, reserving the rights and interests of Palmer. As a result, Humphreys retained possession of the homeopathic medicine piece of the business while Hurtt acquired possession of Ponds Extract. (It was disagreement on the value of each business that resulted in the referenced court case.)

Hurtt didn’t waste any time and by 1873 – 74 his Pond’s Extract Company was initially listed in the New York City directory with a lower Manhattan address of 98 Maiden Lane. That same year he also opened a London, England location as evidenced by this early advertisement that appeared in the “Walsall Advisor” of West Midlands, England on December 30, 1873.

In 1879 – 1880 the company moved its New York City location to 18 Murray Street, also in lower Manhattan. Certainly their office location, by then the company also listed a factory location in Williamsburg, Brooklyn at First (later Kent Ave.) and South Sixth Streets as well as a distillery in Chester, Connecticut. A story in the July 3, 1879 “Rutland (Vt.) Daily Herald” briefly described the operation at the time.

Their great distillery is located in Chester, Conn., where the shrub grows in abundance. It is manufactured from half-inch twigs and brought here (to Brooklyn) in barrels. From these it is poured into large tanks, refined and conveyed by hose to the automatic bottle-fillers, run by machinery and tended by girls, who place the bottles and remove them when filled.

When one looks at these ponderous tanks filled with the healing remedy, they can form some idea of the gigantic proportions to which this enterprising and reliable company have grown…

The story went on to say that the company’s product menu had significantly increased by that time.

It is scarcely supposable that there is another being in the United States who does not know about Pond’s Extract as an antidote for pains and aches which arise from various causes. But there are, doubtless, many who do not know about the toilet articles which they manufacture from this valuable extract. A fine and beautifully perfumed toilet cream which softens the skin and imparts fairness to the complexion is one of the products of this company. A large portion of the toilet cream is composed of Pond’s Extract in a condensed form. Liquid dentrifice, lip salve, toilet soap, ointment, plasters and catarrh remedy are other specifics which the Pond Extract Company have originated and made a success of…

Each of these items, as well as a few more, were included in this price list found in the December 19, 1880 edition of the “Poughkeepsie Journal.”

In 1880, after a failed effort to co-locate the office and manufacturing ends of the business the company moved its New York offices to 14 West 14th St. while at the same time maintaining their Brooklyn factory. The company’s reasoning was included in a May 3, 1880 edition of “The Daily Graphic.”

Our occupation of No. 18 Murray Street during the past year was only temporary, hoping that we might be able to find suitable accommodations to again unite our Counting-room and Manufactory. But our business has grown so rapidly since we began to manufacture a line of articles having POND’S EXTRACT for the basis, and so much room and power are now required that we have concluded to establish ourselves with Advertising Department, Factory, Laboratory, etc., in our building, so conspicuous to travelers on the East River, corner First and South Sixth Streets, Brooklyn, E.D., and have taken permanently for our Office and Sales rooms, No.14 West 14th Street.

Two years later, in March, 1882, much of the company’s Brooklyn factory was seriously impacted by fire. According to an April 12, 1882 story in the “St. Louis Post-Dispatch:”

The destruction of the Pond’s Extract Building by fire on the 18th of March is little short of a national calamity. The building which served as the laboratory, printing, lithographing, advertising and shipping departments of the company was one of the best known in New York, and its burning incurs the loss to Brooklyn of a great monument to trade, and the temporary stoppage of a great industry. Fortunately a schooner loaded with Pond’s Extract had arrived on the night before the fire, too late to discharge its cargo and this supply of the Extract was enough to carry the company over until the distillery at Chester, Connecticut was put to work at full blast. The loss was almost entirely covered by insurance and although the calamity occurred at a time when the orders for the Extract and the toilet articles and specialties also manufactured by the company were large consequently entailing a little temporary embarrassment, every exertion was made to shorten the delay in their execution to a period of two or three days only. This, at least, as regards the Extract itself; the provision of new machinery for the manufacture of the toilet and special preparations delayed the fulfillment of the orders of this department for a week or ten days…

Four months later the factory had not only been re-built, but enlarged as well. This description of the new construction was included in the “Brooklyn Daily Times” on July 6, 1882.

Immediately after the disastrous fire in March last that nearly destroyed the Pond’s Extract Manufactory at the corner of South Sixth and First Streets, the company determined to reconstruct and enlarge the building. The walls were built in a most substantial manner and the greater part of them stood as firmly after the fire as before. All the floor beams throughout the building were removed and new ones put in. The walls were run up another story so now the building is five stories high, each with a floor area of 75 x 100 feet. An Otis elevator has been placed in the building. A powerful engine supplies an abundance of power for the entire building and it is now as fine a manufactory as any fronting on the East River.

Changes occurred in the mid to late 1880’s when by 1885 the company had vacated both the Brooklyn factory and their West 14th Street Manhattan location, consolidating their operation at 76 Fifth Avenue in Manhattan where it took up much of the block between 13th and 14th Streets. Later in the decade a fire in their Chester distillery resulted in a move to Clinton, Connecticut.

These changes were all reflected in this turn of the century description of their operation that appeared in the February 28, 1902 edition of the “Hartford Courant.”

The distilleries of the Pond’s Extract Company are substantial structures located in the heart of the Hamamelis country. During the late fall and winter months, the outlying districts awake to activity, and large numbers of workmen are engaged in cutting the brush and hauling it to the stills. This gives employment to many farmers, and constitutes one of the leading industries of this section. In the seclusion of these mysterious stills the “extract” is prepared, then shipped by car-load to the company’s extensive laboratory in New York, when its preparation is completed.

Here is the depot of the Pond’s Extract Company, and in the big court, enclosed by the walls of their two large buildings at 76 Fifth Avenue, and No. 1 West 13th Street, carloads of barrels rise high as the winds above. The next day the contents of these same barrels will have been scattered in bottles to every part of the civilized world.

Although they were manufacturing other products, up through the first decade of the twentieth century Pond’s Extract was certainly the company’s marque product. With its 60 plus year reputation they continued to stress its medicinal qualities, referring to it as “The Old Family Doctor.”.

They were even promoting a “Pond’s Extract Accident Case” that included a bottle of their extract along with bandages and other first aid items as evidenced by this advertisement that appeared in a 1905 magazine advertisement.

By then, with their curative claims having been toned down, Pond’s Extract was also being promoted as an “after shave” as evidenced by this 1904 advertisement in “Harper’s Monthly.”

In 1906 or 1907 the company moved out of their long time New York City location on Fifth Avenue, relocating to Manhattan’s Hudson Street. As part of the move it appears they relocated their bottling operation to their Clinton, Connecticut facility. According to the State of Connecticut’s Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Report for the Year Ending November 30, 1906.

CLINTON

A two-story frame addition to its plant was built by the Pond’s Extract Company. It is 30 x 100 feet and cost $4,500. A bottling department, heretofore carried on elsewhere, was also added. It is of frame construction, two stories high, 45 x 80 feet, and cost $5,500.

Other changes were also in the works during this time, as evidenced by a feature on the company published years later in the December 30, 1930 edition of the “Hartford Courant”

Until 1906 Pond’s Extract was the only important product manufactured by the company. During that year, however, Pond’s Vanishing Cream and Cold Cream were introduced in this country.

This began what was certainly a shift in the company’s philosophy away from their witch hazel based medicinal products and toward skin care and beauty products; a shift illustrated by the following two advertisements.

In this 1910 ad found in several editions of a magazine called “The Book News Monthly,” both Pond’s Extract and Pond’s Vanishing Cream were advertised together. In fact, Pond’s Extract was the headliner and it’s bottle pictured.

Less than ten years later, in the late teens, most of the company’s advertisements feature women extolling the virtues of both their Vanishing Cream and Cold Cream without even a mention of Pond’s Extract. The following ad that appeared in the January 21, 1917 edition of the “New York Times” was typical.

The advertisement went on to include quotes from several famous women of the day including motion picture actress, Norma Talmadge who said:

I have found Pond’s Vanishing Cream wonderful as a base for make-up. It leaves my skin fresh and clean.

Another, along the same lines was found in the October, 1921 edition of a British magazine called “The Strand.”

The 1930 Hartford Courant feature also noted that by then more skin care products had been added to their menu.

In 1927 the Pond’s Extract Company introduced two new products to be associated with the creams – Pond’s Cleansing Tissues and Pond’s Skin Freshener.

As the product line increased, so did the Pond Company’s facilities. By 1930 the “Hartford Courant” story noted that the company had added a paper mill in Seymour, Connecticut to manufacture their cleansing tissues, while at the same time it was expanding their Clinton, Connecticut facilities:

In 1929 a large modern fire-resistant building was erected to become the main manufacturing plant of the company being connected to the old building by fire-proof bridges and a tunnel.

The new laboratories where Pond’s creams are manufactured are as immaculate as a modern dairy and the most modern of machinery and devices are used for filling. labeling and packing the creams. Hands do not come in contact with the creams during their preparation or packing.

An image of their new plant was included in the October, 1931 edition of a magazine called “Autocar Messenger.”

On a side note, the “Autocar Messenger” also included the following photo…

…whose caption read:

The Pond’s Extract Company’s Model NC Autocar makes scheduled trips between plants in Seymour and Clinton, Conn. It has a wheelbase of 218 inches, semi-van body and Autocar de Luxe Cab. Under the hood is an Autocar Blue Streak Engine.

By 1930 the company’s reach was certainly world-wide.

Two subsidiary companies – Pond’s Extract Company, International, Ltd. and Pond’s Extract Company of Canada, Ltd., conduct the business of the company outside of the United States.

Throughout the 1930’s the number of skin care and beauty products produced by the company continued to increase, with the company’s advertising devoted almost exclusively to these products. That being said their Pond’s Extract, though not advertised to any great extent, remained on the market through much of the 1940’s.

As late as 1942 Pond’s Extract was included in this January 22nd advertisement for their vanishing cream found in a grocery store advertisement published in the “Pasadena (California) Post…”

… and it was sporadically named in local drug store advertisements throughout much of the decade. The latest one I can find appeared in an August 29, 1947 “Tulsa (Oklahoma) Tribune” ad for Skagg’s Drug Center where you could buy the 25 cent size for 21 cents.

As far as I can tell, all newspaper references pertaining to the sale of Pond’s Extract disappear prior to 1950.

Ultimately, the Pond’s Extract Company merged with the Cheesebrough Manufacturing Company in 1955. The April 28th edition of the “Buffalo News” announced the merger like this:

Directors of Cheesebrough Mfg. Co., makers of vaseline products, and Pond’s Extract Co. approved an agreement of merger today. The name of the new company will be Cheesebrough-Pond’s, Inc…

Cheesebrough-Ponds was later acquired by Unilever in December, 1986. Subsequently, 25 years later, in 2011, Unilever announced they were closing the former Pond’s plant in Clinton, Connecticut. The announcement appeared in the July 15, 2011 edition of the “Hartford Courant.”

Unilever is closing its manufacturing plant in Clinton next year, laying off 184 workers who make Vaseline Petroleum Jelly and other body care products at the facility…

The Clinton plant manufactures Vaseline, Pond’s and Dove face-care products; Axe, Dove and Suave hair styling products; Dove lotion, shampoo and conditioner; and other hair and skin products. The work will be transferred to other Unilever plants…

The plant had certainly closed by late the following year as evidenced by this auction notice that appeared in the November 11, 2012 edition of the “Hartford Courant.”

The bottle I found is embossed “PONDS EXTRACT” vertically on one face while the date “1846” is embossed on the base. Mouth blown, it likely dates sometime around the turn of the century before the advent of machine made bottles. It was almost certainly packaged in what the company referred to as a “buff wrapper” as evidenced by this March 15, 1900 Louisville, Kentucky “Courier Journal” advertisement.

This June 11, 1905 advertisement published in the St. Louis “Globe Democrat,” noted that at the time it came in four sizes.

The subject bottle is almost certainly the small size. Other sizes sold around that time were pints (medium) and quarts (large). I’m not sure how big the emergency size was however based on the above pricing it couldn’t have been much more than an ounce or so.

ON A FINAL NOTE:

The Brooklyn factory building utilized by the company between the late 1870’s and mid 1880’s owns a sliver of little known (at least to me) New York City history. Located right along the shores of the East River its clock tower was visible to the River’s boat traffic. After the 1882 fire the clock was replaced by one of, if not the largest clock in the United States at the time. It was described like this in a June 6, 1882 “Brooklyn Daily Times story:

One of the principal features of the remodeled structure is the clock tower which rises at the southwest corner of the building to a height of nearly 199 feet above the sidewalk, being surmounted by a mansard roof and a flag staff. The old clock destroyed by the fire was well known to passengers on the ferry boats and steamboats along the river; for it could could be seen at a distance of several miles and was always a reliable time piece. The new clock is much larger, and its manufacturers the Seth Thomas Clock Company, claim that it will prove itself to be a better clock. It is one of the largest, if not the largest, clocks in the United States, for there are none in the country that can boast of a dial plate fifteen feet four inches in diameter, with figures two feet in length and hands in proportion. There are other clocks in the country, that have more dial room on account of having four dials, the Pond’s clock has but two, but none with a dial of as great diameter. A TIMES reporter lately visited the clock-tower of the Pond’s Building in which the works of the clock are located. The mechanism of the great clock is highly finished, a great pendulum nearly fifteen feet long and extending down two stories, swinging back and forth with dignified regularity. It consists of a great polished iron bar, at the end of which is a large cylinder of solid iron weighing about 800 pounds. The weights that keep the clock in motion weigh nearly one thousand pounds, and have a fall of about twenty feet. The clock will run eight days after being wound up.

As far as I can tell, after moving out in 1885 the Pond’s Extract Company ultimately sold the building in 1889. That being said, it continued to be referred to as the Pond’s Building until 1897 when it was demolished to make way for the Brooklyn approach to the Williamsburg Bridge. A December 22, 1897 “Brooklyn Daily Times” story provided the final chapter.

…the big Pond’s Extract building at the foot of South Sixth Street and Kent Avenue, is in rapid process of demolition and other buildings are being quickly torn down to make way for the approach to the new bridge. It is expected that the work of sweeping away the Pond’s building will be completed within a week. The old clock in this building which has been for so long to the thousands of people going to New York and coming from it a landmark, will also have to go in the process of clearing the buildings in the way of the new bridge.

The Williamsburg Bridge opened to traffic six years later on December 19, 1903.

Whitehurst (J. Harrison Whitehurst & Co., Forrest’s Juniper Tar Compound)

The bottle pictured above is roughly one-ounce in size with the name “Whitehurst” embossed vertically down the face of the bottle. It exactly matches this labeled “Whitehurst” bottle found on the website of the Smithsonian’s “National Museum of American History.”

http://americanhistory.si.edu/collections/nmah_715776

This all but confirms that the bottle originally contained Forrest’s Juniper Tar Compound, manufactured by the J. Harrison Whitehurst Company of Baltimore Maryland. The compound, on the market from the 1860’s up through the early 1960’s, was originally advertised as a cure-all for lung and throat related diseases and later as “providing quick relief for coughs, colds and sore throat.”

It’s story begins with Jesse Harrison Whitehurst who, according to a story in the January 30, 1924 edition of Baltimore’s “Evening Sun,”

was a photographer who had studios in Baltimore and in a number of other cities. Later he entered the business of selling proprietary medicines…

The summary of an 1870 court case, involving Whitehurst, published in the May 21, 1870 edition of the “Baltimore Sun,” suggested that he entered the proprietary medicine business sometime in 1860.

The facts as shown by the testimony were that sometime in 1860 John M. Forrest, of Norfolk, Virginia, entered into a contract with Mr. Whitehurst to advertise, manufacture and sell a valuable preparation of tar, the profits to be divided between them. This contract was afterwards modified, and Forrest at the beginning of the war went South, and did not again see Whitehurst until 1868.

During Forrest’s absence advertisements for Juniper Tar began appearing in the “Baltimore Sun.” The first, appearing in their January 3, 1863 edition, provided this detail on its many purported benefits.

CURE YOUR COUGH – No Cure, No Pay – DR. FORREST’S MEDICATED JUNIPER TAR, a certain, reliable and speedy cure for Coughs, Colds, and all kinds of Throat and Lung Diseases. This much esteemed and extraordinary medicine will not fail to effectually cure, with absolute certainty, every species of Lung and Throat Disease arising from colds, it matters not how long standing, (provided the patient is not hopelessly bedridden) as well as every form of inflammation.

This is the great secret of its virtues – the removing of inflammation. Hence its claim to unparalleled medical power in healing all inflammatory complaints, such as Coughs Colds, Hoarseness, Bronchitis, Sore Throat and Bleeding at the Lungs, Asthmatic Affections, Diphtheria or Ulcerated Throat, Hooping Cough and Croup, Hard Breathing, and all kinds of Scrofulous Affections, Ulcers or Old Sores of every kind, Rheumatism, Neuralgia, Erysipelas, Soreness in Chest, Back or Limbs, Gout and all stages of Swelling, Palsy and Nervous Debility, Burns and Fresh Wounds, Piles of every description, and Sore Feet and Joints, Scald Head, Ringworm, Chilblain, and Frostbite.

It affords instantaneous relief in sudden cases of Cough or Croup, the latter a disease so terrible among children.

One Bottle will cure a fresh case of Cough, and from three to six bottles will cure the most inveterate Cough, and a few doses will cure any case of Croup. Try it, and if a cure is not effected, the price will be refunded. This is the true test, and is with more than a million of published certificates. See full directions with statements of extraordinary cures made in Baltimore, accompanying each bottle.

The advertisement concluded by announcing:

Prepared by John M. Forrest & Co., Wholesale Depot, 123 Baltimore Street, third floor. Sold Retail by COLEMAN & ROGERS, Baltimore St. and Druggists generally.

That year Whitehurst’s photography gallery was also listed at 123 Baltimore Street, so it’s almost certain he was involved with its manufacture, while Coleman & Rogers was his retail outlet. This changed on August 20, 1868 when Forrest returned and mutually agreed with Whitehurst to dissolve their partnership.

The partnership almost certainly ended on bad terms because within several months both were advertising their own version of “Forrest’s Juniper Tar.”

In a notice published in several November, 1868 editions of the “Baltimore Sun” Forrest announced that he had made an arrangement with Coleman & Rogers to manufacture and sell Forrest’s Original Unadulterated Juniper Tar…

..and by March of the following year he was advertising it under the name J. M. Forrest.

Not to be outdone, as early as December, 1868 Whitehurst was also advertising Forrest’s Juniper Tar in the “Baltimore Sun,” not under the name J. M. Forrest but James Mason Forrest, whose initials also happened to be “J. M.”

Whitehurst’s explanation for this appeared in a notice he published in the December 11, 1869 edition of the “Baltimore Sun.”

We will simply say that we have had dealings and some contracts with Mr. (John) Forrest, but we never had any contract or transaction, directly or indirectly, with him in which “Juniper Tar” is named or referred to.

About seven years since (1862) we entered into a partnership agreement…with Dr. James Mason Forrest, of New York, to manufacture a medicine which he had discovered and called “Forrest’s Juniper Tar.” Under that authority we have been manufacturing, advertising and selling for over six years.

J. M. WHITEHURST, Proprietor by Purchase.

The entire situation resulted in the 1870 court case, “Jesse H. Whitehurst vs. James C. Rogers, trading as Coleman & Rogers,” where Whitehurst challenged Coleman & Rogers’ right to manufacture and sell “Forrest’s Juniper Tar” under that name.

According to the May 21, 1870 trial summary published in the “Baltimore Sun,” during the trial the attorney for Coleman & Rogers charged that James Mason Forrest never existed, that the alleged contract was a fabrication and that the existence of James Mason Forrest and the alleged contract with him were pure inventions. The jury agreed and returned a verdict for Coleman & Rogers. The verdict was later reaffirmed in a second trial in 1873 all of which resulted in both entities continuing to manufacture and sell Forrest’s Juniper Tar; Whitehurst under the name “Dr. James Mason Forrest” and Coleman and Rogers under the name John M. Forrest.

In fact, in several instances their advertisements actually appeared side by side as evidenced by this pair of ads that appeared in the February 28, 1874 edition of the “Baltimore Sun.”

A year later, in 1875 Whitehurst dropped the James Mason Forrest name and began referring to himself as the successor to Dr. James Mason Forrest in his advertisements; this one appearing in several January editions of the “Baltimore Sun.”

That same year the Baltimore directories began naming J. Harrison’s wife, Anna L. Whitehurst, as the manufacturer of Juniper Tar and another patent medicine called “Cedar Balsam.” (She’s listed as a widow in 1880 census records so it’s likely J. Harrison Whitehurst passed away sometime in 1875.) Originally listed with an address of 682 Lexington (1877 – 1878) she later moved to 714 Lexington where she was listed individually up through 1885. Then, in 1886 the J. Harrison Whitehurst Co. was listed in the directories for the first time at 714 Lexington with A. L. Whitehurst named as the sole principal of the firm.

Throughout this time period the competition with Coleman & Rogers continued with both entities advertising their Juniper Tar. This began to change in 1887 when Coleman & Rogers was put up for sale. The sale announcement appeared in the June 27, 1887 edition of the “Baltimore Sun.”

The notice went on to list the specifics of the sale which included:

…the valuable formulae of the late Dr. James C. Rogers, among others the exclusive right to manufacture and sell Coleman & Rogers’s Tonic and Vegetable Tonic, Dr. Forrest’s Juniper Tar….

A week later, the July 2, 1887 edition of the “Baltimore County Union” published the sale results.

Mr. John M. Gallagher, trustee, sold on Monday last, the old drug house of Coleman & Rogers, on Baltimore Street. This was one of the most extensively known business houses in Baltimore, having been established fifty-five years ago by Robert H. Coleman, Seth Rogers afterwards purchasing an interest in the business. The good-will of the firm, which means the right to the old firm name was bought by Dr. (Erasmus) West, an old employee of the house, for $8.

Advertisements for Juniper Tar referencing the “late firm of Coleman & Rogers,” likely run by Erasmus West, appeared sporadically in the “Baltimore Sun” for the next two years, after which they disappear. The last one I can find appeared in their February 25, 1889 edition.

With West now apparently out of the picture, J. Harrison Whitehurst & Co. took over the entire market for Forrest’s Juniper Tar. Over the next several years the company, controlled by Anna and her two sons, Charles E. and William H. listed addresses of 1707 W. Lexington (1887 – 1891); 1732 Bolton (1892); 239 Laurens (1893); 124 Richmond (1894 – 1895), 410 W. Saratoga (1896 to 1904) and 415 W. Franklin (1905 – 1914) before settling at 504 Pennsylvania Avenue where it remained until the early 1960’s.

As late as 1908 the company was still using the word “cure” in their Juniper Tar advertising, as evidenced by this ad found in the February 18th edition of Jackson, Mississippi’s “Daily News.” It claimed:

JUNIPER TAR – The Only Positive Cure for Coughs, Colds, Catarrh, Bronchitis.

Don’t allow yourself to be miserable another day. Even if you have tried many other medicines that have failed, Juniper Tar will positively cure you. It soothes the irritated tissues, allays the inflammation, loosens the congested condition of the lungs, goes to the very root of the trouble and removes the cause. It gives instant relief but goes further and effects a permanent cure.

These claims began to change as a result of the scrutiny brought about by the enactment of food and drug acts beginning in 1906. After confiscating interstate shipments of Juniper Tar in December, 1912 and February, 1913 the government offered this opinion on their advertised claims. The opinion was found in the June 17, 1917 edition of the “Journal of the American Medical Association.”

Forrest’s Juniper Tar. – This preparation was made and sold by the J. Harrison Whitehurst Co. which was a trade name under which Anna Lavinia Whitehurst did business in Baltimore. The preparation admittedly contained 22 percent alcohol and the government chemists found over 55 percent of petroleum and oil of tar. The product was declared misbranded because it was claimed to be a safe, reliable and speedy remedy for all kinds of throat and lung diseases, for arresting and curing catarrh, influenza and consumption in its early stages as well as whooping cough, inflammatory rheumatism and piles. It also claimed to be a cure for consumption and obstinate coughs. These claims were characterized by government officials as false and fraudulent and applied knowingly, recklessly and wantonly.

Consequently, by the end of the decade, another Juniper Tar advertisement, this one also found in Jackson, Mississippi’s “Daily News” on January 31, 1919, looked similar to the 1909 version above but the message had certainly softened.

JUNIPER TAR FOR COUGHS, COLDS, SORE THROAT, ETC.

A good old family medicine, it gives satisfaction to thousands. Why don’t you try it?

And by 1930, this January 2nd ad in the “Atlanta Constitution” simply touted:

JUNIPER TAR COMPOUND gives QUICK RELIEF for Colds, Coughs due to Colds, and Common Sore throat.

Baltimore directories continued to associate Whitehurst family members with the business up through 1942 and I suspect that the family remained associated with the business up until 1954. (I don’t have access to directories from 1943 to 1954). Then, on November 21, 1954 a notice published in the “Baltimore Sun” announced that the company was up for sale.

It’s not exactly clear who bought the business but J. Harrison Whitehurst & Co. continued to be listed in the 1956 Baltimore directory with Charles H. Wenger, named as president; Cath Fischer, vice president and Chas. E. Delosier, sec-treas.

The business apparently remained active into the early 1960’s. One of their last newspaper advertisements for Juniper Tar, appeared in the October 30, 1960 edition of the “Baltimore Sun…”

…and for another year or so after that the product was sporadically included in advertised drug store price lists. As late as January 11, 1962 Juniper Tar was still on sale in Lynchburg, Virginia at “Jackson’s Cut-Rate Drugs” (lower left).

The end had certainly arrived by December 2, 1964 when the J. Harrison Whitehurst Company appeared on a list published in Salisbury Maryland’s “Daily Times” under the heading:

The bottle I found is machine made, 3-1/4 inches tall, by 1-5/8 inches wide, by 3/4 inch deep. It can’t contain much more than one ounce. The bottle exhibits the Illinois Glass makers mark of an “I” inside a diamond on its base. According to the following web site, the mark was in use from 1915 to 1929.

http://glassbottlemarks.com/i-inside-diamond-illinois-glass-company/

The bottle was likely packaged and sold in a paper wrapper similar to the one shown in this February 28, 1920 advertisement published in the “Baltimore Sun.”