Pharmacy/Druggist – Bay Bottles

O. A. A. Rouillon, No. 1 Gates Avenue, Brooklyn

In 1913, Octave A. A. Ruillion, on the occasion of his eightieth birthday, was recognized by his peers as being the oldest practicing pharmacist in the borough of Brooklyn. The story appeared in the February 7, 1913 edition of the “Brooklyn Daily Eagle.”

PHARMACISTS HONOR OCTAVE ROUILLION

Tribute was paid to Octave A. A. Rouillion, the oldest pharmacist in Brooklyn, by the Kings County Pharmaceutical Society, last night, on the occasion of his 80th birthday, when a large number of members of the society visited his store at the corner of Gates Avenue and Fulton Street, and compelled him to suspend business while Thomas D. McElhenie, another of Brooklyn’s oldest druggists, made a short address and presented him with a handsome engraved certificate of life membership in the society…

Mr. McElhenie told the aged druggist that he had been elected to life membership in the Pharmaceutical Society, and went on to explain the handsome morris chair which was delivered to the store earlier in the day and which had kept Mr. Rouillion guessing all day, was a gift from the members of the society, who hoped that he would find ample time in coming years to put it to good use. A large bouquet of eighty red carnations was also brought along and presented…

This photograph of Rouillion accompanied the “Brooklyn Daily Eagle” story.

A native of France, Rouillion’s early life was described in his October, 1918 “Druggist Circular” obituary.

Mr. Rouillion was born in Bazancais, France, February 6, 1833. In his younger years he engaged in the drug business in Paris, whence he immigrated to this country and continued his business in this state for fifty-eight years.

Census records in 1900 indicate that he arrived in the United States in 1858 where, according to his “Druggist Circular” obituary, he began his career in Manhattan.

He was at one time connected with the wholesale firm of E. Fougera & Co., this city, and prior to that conducted a store in Greenwich Street.

That being said the earliest reference to Rouillion that I can find doesn’t appear until 1865/1866 when he was listed in the Brooklyn directory with a residence of 280 Fulton Street. So his days in Manhattan will remain a mystery, at least to me.

Rouillion would go on to spend 50 + years in Brooklyn. In 1868/1869, and possibly earlier, he was working as a druggist for the firm of Heydenreich Bros., a retail druggist located at 169 Atlantic Avenue.

In 1872/1873 the Heydenreich Brothers began listing a second Brooklyn drug store, this one at what would ultimately become Rouillion’s long-time location at 1 Gates Avenue. By 1875/1876, Rouillion had apparently partnered with the Heydenreich’s at the Gates Avenue drug store such that by then it was listed under the name of Heydenreich & Ruillion. Their business card appeared in a document entitled “Proceedings of the Medical Society of the County of Kings,” published on July 17, 1877.

Ultimately, in 1878/1879, Rouillion became the sole owner of the Gates Avenue drug store where he remained in business for almost 40 more years.

A chemist, as well as a pharmacist, his formula for a new cold cream appeared in the “Year-Book of Pharmacy, Comprising Abstracts of Papers Relating to Pharmacy, Medica and Chemistry,” published in 1896.

A little over two years after his 80th birthday celebration, Rouillion, looking to retire, announced that his drug store was up for sale in the September, 1915 edition of “The Practical Druggist” .

Two months later, “The Practical Druggist” announced that the business had been sold and Rouillion was officially retired.

Octave A. A. Rouillion, the oldest active pharmacist in Brooklyn, has retired from business, and has sold his establishment at Gates Avenue and Fulton Street… His successor in the business is A. N. Miller, a graduate of the New York College of Pharmacy.

Rouillion passed away three years later on September 1, 1918. This paragraph found in his “Druggist Circular” obituary speaks volumes about the type of individual he was.

The deceased set his standard of business integrity exceptionally high, as an instance of his career will denote. While conducting an experiment with a rubber compound he accidentally set his store on fire, with a resultant damage of about $1,000 to stock and fixtures. When the insurance adjusters called later, however, he refused to enter a claim, and no argument availed to make him do so: he held himself entirely responsible for the fire. Sturdy honesty of this type, together with a kindly and companionable disposition, won and held for Mr. Rouillion a wide circle of friends in both his business and social life.

Rouillon’s drug store was located where Gates Avenue, Fulton Street and Clermont Avenue all come together. Today, there’s no sign of the building that housed the business.

The subject bottle is 1-1/4 inches square, 4 inches tall and contains about 2 ounces. Blown in a mold, it could fit almost anywhere in the 1878 to 1918 time frame that Rouillion was located at the Gates Avenue location.

D. Peraza, Pharmacist, 3rd Ave., Cor. 23rd St., N.Y.

Domingo Peraza was born in Puerto Rico in 1840 and by the early 1870’s was living in New York where he attended the New York College of Pharmacy. His 1873 graduation class was featured in the May 1st edition of “The Pharmaceutical Era.”

In 1877 he established a drug store at 301 (sometimes 303) Third Avenue on Manhattan’s east side. Located on the northeast corner of 23rd Street and Third Avenue, NYC directories listed him as the store’s proprietor up through 1894. On occasion his listing included two other Manhattan drug stores as well, one at 1148 Third Avenue (1888) and another at 92 Lexington Avenue (1894). All indications were that he was a well respected pharmacist who in addition to running his business served as a trustee and officer of the New York College of Pharmacy during the late 1880’s and early 1890’s.

Things changed abruptly in 1895 when, as reported in the January 8th edition of the “New York Times,” Peraza sold his business and disappeared.

Domingo Peraza, druggist, at the corner of Third Avenue and Twenty-third Street, has sold out his place of business to E. J. Sultan. A creditor said yesterday that Mr. Peraza was last seen by him two weeks ago. Mr. Peraza called concerning payment of a bill then due, and promised to settle in a few days, but he has not since put in an appearance.

Peraza was missing for over a year when this story detailing the circumstances behind his disappearance appeared in the April 16, 1896 edition of “The Pharmaceutical Era,” under the heading “Domingo Peraza’s Return.”

The disappearance of Domingo Peraza, trustee of the New York College of Pharmacy, apparently successful druggist, and the good friend of many a struggling youth of his own nationality, was more than a seven days’ wonder to the drug trade of New York City. Up to the present time no satisfactory reason seems to have been presented why Mr. Peraza should so suddenly have become poor and hopelessly involved in debt, and, worst of all, have left town without word to the men he owed. There were few of them but would have helped him to tide over his difficulties.

Since Mr. Peraza left New York months ago no word has been received from him. His creditors were aware that he had at one time been in Paris, but that was all they knew. It will surprise them, as well as Mr. Peraza’s friends, to know that four weeks ago he was in this city. So ashamed was he of his poverty and his debts that he kept out of the way of every friend he once had save one, and to him he only went when in dire need. The story of Mr. Peraza’s disappearance and return will surely interest everybody who knew him, and there were few in the trade who did not. The facts are from good authority.

It would seem that the Peraza drug store, at the corner of Third Avenue and Twenty-third Street, made a mint of money for its proprietor at one time. It was no unusual thing to take in from $60 to $75 a day there some years ago, and Mr. Peraza saw a fortune ahead of him. When he was prospering the most he became acquainted with a South American whose name is prefaced with the title of General. The man soon became the druggist’s close friend, and it was not long before he had interested Mr. Peraza in a Utopian scheme which had for its basis the placing of the General in the president’s chair of one of the South American republic’s. In order to bring this about money was necessary. Mr. Peraza fell into the scheme with great ardor and soon his money went into the hands of the General.

This payment of money to the South American took most of the profits of the drug store, but the proprietor never suspected but that he would receive his money back. The General finally left New York and went to Paris, carrying with him a very large sum of money for the purpose of starting an expedition to the republic in South America. Shortly after a business reverse opened Mr. Peraza’s eyes, and when he looked about he found the only property he had in the world was his drug store. He owed $22,000, so was heels over head in debt even if he had sold the store to satisfy his creditors.

It is said that he decided then to sell the store for what ready cash he could get and go to Paris to find the General, from whom he had not heard, and get back as much of his money as he could. In pursuance of this plan he sold the store to E. J. Sultan at a much lower price than he would have disposed of it otherwise, and left with his family for Paris.

Once in the French capital he began his search for the General, but either did not find him or was unable to get any of his money from the adventurer. After a while his money gave out, and he was obliged to seek work to supply himself and family with food. He found it difficult to get steady employment, and finally tramped the streets in vain. Nobody could give him work. Then he made application to one of the French pharmaceutical societies, and they helped him to some extent, but he had to saw wood for 25 cents a day to eke out a living. Finding that his condition and that of his family was worse than it would be in New York, he made a last application to the French society and secured enough to bring him and his family here in steerage.

Four weeks ago he presented himself to a man here to whom he owed $1,800. He said he was absolutely without money, could not bring himself to the point of facing his other creditors, and begged for assistance. He wanted to go to the West Indies, where, among his own people, he might obtain a fresh start. His family he had placed among friends here. His pitiable plea had its effect, and the creditor advanced him enough to pay his passage South.

The story told above is reported to have been secured in driblets from Mr. Peraza while he was here. He felt his position keenly, and reported continually the hope that he could get enough to pay back what he owed here, so that he might come back and be able to show his face again among those he had known so long.

As the above story suggests, four weeks before it was written a March 13 1896 “La Correspondencia de Puerto Rico” story puts Peraza back in Puerto Rico.

Our old friend and compatriot Don Domingo Peraza arrived on this Island from New York, whom we greet affectionately. Mr. Peraza is a Puerto Rican who brings honor to his country and has lived in New York for many years, where he occupies a distinguished place for his probity and honesty.

Not long after arriving he was apparently back in business as the proprietor of a drug store in the Santurce section of San Juan. This was certainly the case in November, 1898 when the November 2nd edition of “La Correspondencia de Puerto Rico” announced that his drug store was being considered as the location for the local post office.

A local newspaper indicates that Mr. Domingo Peraza, who meets special requirements for the case, will be appointed postmaster in Santurce. The choice seems very correct to us: in this way, the important office will be in a central location and in a place open to the public at all hours. Mr. Peraza speaks Spanish, English and French, and therefore will be able to communicate with everyone.

On July 20, 1899 another story in “La Correspondencia de Puerto Rico” announced that his appointment as postmaster was official.

Mr. Domingo Peraza, owner of the American pharmacy, has been appointed to take charge of the sub-station, which is connected to his pharmacy. Stamps are available for sale, and the public may, as heretofore, certify letters and packages.

It appears that his drug store continued to operate as the local post office until 1907 when the May 2, 1907 edition of the “La Correspondencia de Puerto Rico” announced that Peraza was replaced as postmaster in Santurce by Mr. Garcia Neander.

Whether he sold his drug store to Neander or just relinquished his postmaster duties is not clear, but the following year the February 4, 1908 edition of “La Correspondencia de Puerto Rico” announced Peraza was opening another drug store in Santurce.

We have been kindly favored with a circular from Messrs. Peraza and Vega,” pharmacists of Santurce. Through it, they are pleased to announce that they have opened a pharmacy establishment at Stop 19, between the streets of “Daffant” and “Dos Hermanos,” which will be dedicated to all businesses in the field and especially to the dispatch of medical and patent prescriptions of all origins.

Census records in 1910 continued to list Peraza as a pharmacist living in Puerto Rico but by 1920 a story in a San Juan newspaper called “Imparcial.” made it clear that his pharmacy was under new ownership referring to the business of E. L. Catarineu as the “Succesors of Domingo Peraza & Co.”

When exactly Peraza gave up the business is not clear, but what we do know is that on June 2, 1918 he was headed back to New York on the steamship Carolina when it was sunk by a German U-boat off the Delaware coast.

According to a June 5, 1918 story in the “New York Times:”

The fears that the 5,000 ton passenger steamship Carolina of the New York and Porto Rico Steamship Line, from San Juan to New York had been one of the victims of a U-boat raider were confirmed yesterday. Of the 331 passengers and crew on board the Carolina, nineteen landed at Lewes, and twenty-nine at Atlantic City and 244 are known to be aboard the schooner Eva B. Douglass, bound for this port.

According to survivors who have already landed, the Carolina was sunk shortly after 6 o’clock on Sunday night by the German submarine U-37…somewhere 150 miles southeast of the Delaware Capes.

Accounts as to the stopping of the steamer varied. One man said that the German held her up with a hail, whereas the captain hove to. Another said a warning shot was fired across the bow, and a woman reported that this shot was followed by another shell which exploded above the deck. In any event, the officers of the submarine ordered the crew and passengers into the boats at once. There was no time to collect belongings, but it was said that a number of army officers on board found time to put on civilian clothes and thereby escape the possibility of being carried off as prisoners.

After those on board had got into the steamer’s ten boats, being apparently treated with reasonable courtesy by the Germans, the steamer was sunk by shellfire. Then the boats pulled away trying to keep together , but Sunday night a storm came up, which separated them and overturned at least one, the one which afterward was brought into Lewes. The voyagers in this boat clung to her as she lay upside down in the water, but eventually the strain shook the hold of the weaker ones, and sixteen had been compelled to let go and drown before the storm finally passed and the boat was righted.

The boat which landed at Atlantic City had been in the water forty-four hours with little water and almost no food on board, and some few of the survivors were suffering considerably, though none was in a serious condition. It is believed that more survivors will be landed at Atlantic ports during the night.

A story out of New York that was picked up by the “Springfield (Ohio) News-Sun” on June 6th named Domingo Peraza as one of 10 passengers still unaccounted for.

There’s no record that I can find that Peraza was ever found. At the age of 78, it’s possible that he was one of those that ultimately lost their grip on the overturned lifeboat.

I can’t help but think that Peraza was on his way back to New York to pay off his debts from years past.

The bottle I found is a small mouth-blown prescription bottle, 3-1/2 inches tall, that contains exactly one ounce. It dates no later than 1895 when Peraza sold his New York City business to Edward J. Sultan.

Today, according to “Google Maps,” 301 Third Avenue is a vacant lot. Future plans for the site were announced on February 20, 2024 in an item found on market proof.com.

Permits have been filed to build a 19-story 69 unit building at 301 Third Avenue, in Kips Bay, Manhattan. The proposed 210-foot tall building will have 80,886 square feet of residential space and 26,666 square feet of commercial space. The permit was filed on February 20, 2024.

The item went on to say that the two-story building previously located on the site was built in 1960. So it did not date back to the time of the Peraza business.

Ewen McIntyre & Son, 990 Sixth Ave., Cor. 55th St., New York

Ewen McIntyre was a New York City druggist who was active in business for well over half of the 19th Century. A June 1, 1892 “Pharmaceutical Era” feature on McIntyre celebrating his 50th anniversary as a druggist referred to him at that time as “the oldest living druggist in New York.”

The son of a farmer, McIntyre was born in upstate New York in 1825. According to another feature on McIntyre, this one found in the February, 1913 edition of the “Druggist Circular,” he arrived in New York City sometime in the early 1840’s where he attended the New York City College of Pharmacy while also serving as an apprentice in the drug store of George D. Coggeshall who, at the time, was located at the corner of Pearl and Rose Streets in lower Manhattan. The feature went on to describe the terms of his apprenticeship.

The then prevailing term of service for an apprentice was four years, and he received, as compensation, board and lodging, two courses of lectures on pharmacy and chemistry, and at the end of the four years, $150 in money… He served the four years and was graduated by the New York College of Pharmacy in 1847.

One of five graduates that year, a notice listing the members of his graduating class appeared in the March 19, 1847 edition of New York’s “Evening World” (last paragraph).

Within two or three years of graduation McIntyre left Coggeshall and opened his own drug store. First listed in the 1849/1850 New York City directory with an address of 872 Broadway, it was located at the northeast corner of Broadway and Eighteenth Street. Today it certainly wouldn’t be viewed as a country drug store but according to the “Druggist Circular” feature back then that’s exactly what it was.

At that time cows were kept at one of the opposite corners and milk sold; on another corner pigs were kept. There were no houses above sixteenth Street, on the east side, and none above 23rd Street on the west side of Fifth Avenue.

This early reference to McIntyre’s drug store that appeared in the September 25, 1871 edition of the “New York Tribune” named the business as one of several located along Broadway where you could purchase BURR’s Celebrated Corn Salve and Tooth Ache Drops.

Sometime in the early 1880’s McIntyre’s son, also named Ewen, joined him in business with the 1881/1882 directory listing both father and son with the occupation “drugs” at the 872 (sometimes 874) Broadway address. Not long afterwards, with the population of Manhattan expanding north, so did the McIntyre’s, and by the early 1880’s they opened a second store at 990 Sixth Avenue. This 1885 Sanborn map located the store at the northeast corner of Sixth Avenue and 55th Street (upper left-hand corner).

At the same time they opened their second store Ewen Jr. was admitted as a partner in the business, with the 1883/1884 directory listing both locations along with the new company name, Ewen McIntyre & Son, for the first time.

Both stores remained in operation until 1890 when an April 7th item in “The Pharmaceutical Record” announced the Broadway location was closing down. It appeared under the heading: “News of the Trade.”

The old and well known stand of Ewen McIntyre, Broadway and Eigteenth Street, will be discontinued after May 1 and the business removed to the branch store at Sixth Avenue and Fifty-fifth street while the old location will be built upon and leased for business purposes.

Business must have been good because build is exactly what McIntyre did and a year later this rendering of the new “McIntyre Building”appeared in the October 17, 1891 edition of “Architecture and Building.”

McIntyre never established a drug store in the building, instead leasing out all of the space to others. The building remains to this day as evidenced by the following photo courtesy of Google Maps.

This left the Sixth Avenue location as McIntyre’s only drug store. In 1891, it was described like this in “The History and Commerce of New York.”

Ewen McIntyre & Son, Apothecaries, No. 992 Sixth Avenue – In its own section of the city the handsome store of Messrs. Ewen McIntyre & Son is a favorite landmark, and is popularly regarded as one of the most complete apoyhecaries’ establishments hereabouts. The house supplies genuine and reliable drugs, chemicals, tinctures, patent medicines, toilet articles, summer and winter beverages etc., at popular prices; it was founded by the present senior partner, Mr. Ewen McIntyre, as far back as 1841 and he admitted his son, Mr. Ewen McIntyre, Jr., in 1881, at which time the firm name was changed to its present style. The trade although local in its character, is of heavy volume , and the house is a popular headquarters for the compounding of physicians’ prescriptions. The store has floor space of 35 x 100 feet, and with its handsome soda fountain, erected at a cost of $2,000, its marble counters, tessellated flooring and large and tastefully arranged stock presents an appearance at once elegant and impressive…

Census records in 1900 list McIntyre Sr.’s occupation as retired so by then he had turned the day-to-day running of the business over to his son. That’s not to say that he didn’t return to the store on occasion as evidenced by this circa 1911 photograph that appeared in the March, 1913 edition of “The Druggist Circular.”

The accompanying story laid out the circumstances that led to the photo.

The Late Mr. McIntyre in His Store

Two winters ago Ewen McIntyre, Jr., took a trip to California and in his absence his father, who died last January, returned for a time to active participation in the business of the store conducted by Ewen McIntyre & Son, at Sixth Avenue and Fifty-sixth (actually Fifth-fifth) Street. This is one of the old stores which, while strictly up to date as a pharmacy, has not been turned into a bazaar for the sale of all manner of knick-knacks and gewgaws. The old-style shop bottles and jars on the shelves, the display of toilet goods and kindred side-lines in the show cases, and even the odor which greets one as he steps into the store all proclaim that the place is an apothecary shop.

While in the store Mr. McIntyre permitted the manager, J. F. Smith to “snap” him and Mr. Smith has kindly allowed the Circular to make a half-tone from the picture he thus obtained.

Ewen McIntyre & Son was still listed as a retail druggist at 990 Sixth Avenue in the 1925 New York City directory. Then, likely sometime in 1926, the business apparently moved one block south to 954 Sixth Avenue where I suspect they took over the corner drug store identified on the 1885 Sanborn Map as “K. Molwitz Drugs.”

They had certainly settled there in March 1927 when a story found in a publication entitled “The Soda Fountain”announced they had just opened a new soda fountain there.

“No customer ever sits at our fountain for more than thirty or forty seconds without getting some attention.” Victor De Rose, head fountain man for Ewen McIntyre & Son, druggists, 954 Sixth Avenue, New York City makes this statement with due pride.

Mr. De Rose until recent weeks was with the Theresa Pharmacy, 58th and Lexington Avenue, New York City…Until he was free to take charge of the new McIntyre fountain he served in an advisory capacity…

The story included the following photograph of the soda fountain that also appears to show a drug counter and drug cases toward the rear.

That same year the McIntyre Drug Store was taken over by the newly organized Allison Drug Stores Corporation. According to the November 1927 edition of a publication entitled “Chain Store Age:”

The organization of Allison Drug Stores Corporation to take over sixteen drug stores operating in New York City was announced last month by Baker, Simonds & Co. in connection with the offering of 70,000 shares of Class A Convertible Stock. One of the stores involved in the transaction is Gray’s Drug Store, 43rd Street and Broadway. The others are located in the Grand Central – Times Square zone and on desirable corners on Broadway and upper Sixth Avenue….

Another story, this one in the October 18, 1927 edition of “Drug and Chemical Markets” made it clear that McIntyre’s was one of the 16 drug stores mentioned in the above story.

The recently organized Allison Drug Stores, Corp., with offices at 1482 Broadway, New York, now own and operate the following drug stores: … McIntyre’s Drug Store, Fifty-fourth Street and Sixth Avenue…

All 16 stores were listed in a December 11, 1927 advertisement published in the New York “Daily News.” Mcintyre’s is on the right-hand side toward the bottom.

The 1929 stock market crash and resultant depression must have taken its toll on the Allison corporation, and by the end of 193o the November 19th edition of the “Brooklyn Daily Eagle” announced that Allison Drug Stores, Inc. had been declared bankrupt.

An involuntary petition in bankruptcy was filed in Federal Court against the Allison Drug Stores, Inc….The petition states that the drug firm concedes its insolvency and inability to meet its obligations.

The Sixth Avenue drug store apparently survived and was still listed under the name Ewen McIntyre & Son at 54th Street and Sixth Avenue in 1960, though who owned and operated it at this time is unclear.

In 1930 the address of the drug store changed to 1336 Sixth Avenue as a result of New York City’s renumbering of Sixth Avenue in 1929. Later, 1n 1945, Sixth Avenue was renamed Avenue of the Americas. Today the former location of the McIntyre Drug Store lies within the foot print of 1330 Avenue of the Americas, a 40 story office tower. The building was built in 1965 so the drug store disappeared sometime in the early 1960’s.

The bottle I found was blown in a mold and is roughly seven inches tall, 2-1/2 inches in diameter, and contains a little less than 12-ounces. It’s size and shape reminds me of a citrate of magnesia bottle, though it could have contained just about any of the prescriptions, chemicals, tinctures or patent medicines McIntyre was selling.

Embossed with the 990 Sixth Avenue address it certainly dates no earlier than the early 1880’s when McIntyre opened that location and no later than the early 1900’s after which I’d expect to see a machine-made bottle.

W. G. Geety, Inc. Apothecary, Broadway and 138th St., New York

Wallace Gillespie Geety was a long time New York City pharmacist and chemist who operated drug stores in Upper Manhattan for well over 60 years.

Born in 1873, sometime in his teens he started his career, not in New York, but as a drug clerk in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. In 1892, a story in the August 25th edition of the “Harrisburg Daily Independent” announced that he was leaving Harrisburg to attend the Philadelphia College of Pharmacy.

Wallace Geety, of Forney & Knouse’s drug store, will leave for Philadelphia tomorrow to attend the college of pharmacy in the Quaker City.

Graduating in 1894, according to the May edition of “The American Journal of Pharmacy” the subject of his graduate thesis was “Mistura Glycyrrhizae Composita.”

“King’s American Dispensatory,” published in 1908, described Mistura Glycyrrhizae Composita as a “compound licorice mixture” that included among other things powdered extract of licorice, powdered gum arabic, camphorated tincture of opium and tincture of bloodroot. “King’s American Dispensatory” went on to say that it

forms an excellent cough mixture, and may be used in catarrhal affections after the subsidence of the more active symptoms, and when expectoration is present.

Whether Geety simply studied the preparation or actually cococted it during his college years is unclear.

All that aside, after graduation Geety relocated to New York City where Volume 31 of the Philadelphia College of Pharmacy’s Alumni Report (1894-1895) announced:

Wallace G. Geety, “94” is now with F. K. James, 700 Eighth Avenue, New York City.

As late as 1897, the New York City directories listed him as a clerk, suggesting he was still employed at James’ pharmacy at that point. Shortly after however he apparently left James to start his own drug store, and the following year, in 1898, he was initially listed as a druggist with an address of 2090 Eighth Avenue, at the corner of 113th Street.

Geety remained in business on Eighth Avenue until 1910 when the March 28th edition of “The American Druggist and Pharmaceutical Record” announced that he had sold the drug store to his previous employer, F. K. James.

The F. K. James Company has succeeded to the business of the store at 113th Street and Eighth Avenue, hitherto conducted by W. G. Geety.

Not long afterwards, Geety formed W. G .Geety, Inc. and opened a store at 3399 Broadway, on the corner of 138th Street. The incorporation notice was published under the heading “New Corporations,” in the October 12, 1912 edition of a publication called “N.A.R.D. (National Association of Retail Druggists) Notes.”

W. G. Geety, Inc., Manhattan, N.Y., $25,000.

As early as 1914 (I don’t have access to 1913) the company was listed in New York City’s Copartnership and Corporation Directory with Wallace G. Geety named as president, and Charles M. Lalor and Edward A. Kelly, named as vice president and secretary respectively. Not simply a retail druggist, Geety also patented at least one new medication, as evidenced by this 1915 patent application for an “Alkaline Antiseptic and Non-Toxic Prophylactic Preparation.’

Sometime in the early 1920’s W. G. Getty, Inc. began listing what was likely a second drug store, at 4181 Broadway. Both locations continued to be listed in the Manhattan telephone book up through 1946 after which the 3399 Broadway location was dropped. The location at 4181 Broadway continued to be listed up through at least 1960 and possibly longer.

The bottle I found is a small medicine, 5-1/4 inches tall, that exhibits the Broadway and 138th Street location (3399 Broadway). Mouth blown it almost certainly dates to the first few years of the 1912 to 1946 time period that Getty operated a drug store at that address.

Today 3399 Broadway (600 West 138th St) is a 6-story residential building with a commercial store at street level.

According to streeteasy.com it was built in 1908, approximately four years before Geety opened his drug store there. As a result, the current street level store shown almost certainly housed Geety’s pharmacy at one time. In fact the bottle likely passed through the front door 100+ years ago.

Wm. R. Warner & Co., Philadelphia

William R. Warner is one of several individuals recognized as pioneers in the manufacture and distribution of sugar coated pills in the United States. According to a feature on Warner found in a publication entitled: “First Century of the Philadelphia College of Pharmacy,” published in 1922:

Like the process of percolation the sugar coating of pills was discovered in France but was developed in America by the labors of Warner, Bullock, Wiegand and others.

Born in Caroline County, Maryland in 1836, Warner first entered the drug business with the Easton, Maryland firm of Chamberlain and Anderson. His experience there apparently inspired him to attend the Philadelphia College of Pharmacy where he graduated in 1856. Shortly afterwards he opened his own retail pharmacy at Second Street and Girard Avenue in Philadelphia.

According to his son, William R. Warner, Jr., who was quoted in the Philadelphia College of Pharmacy story, it was at the Second Street pharmacy that Warner began the manufacture of sugar coated pills. That being said, initially they were not distributed under the Warner name.

My father conceived the idea of sugar coating pills when a lad in the drug store at Easton, Md., and accomplished the feat though somewhat crudely. I am inclined to believe that he perfected his process of covering pills with sugar shortly after 1856, or probably the next year. He made and sold them to Bullock and Crenshaw in bulk and they put them up and marketed them as their own, such is now done by druggists under “buyers name.” My father was not known by the profession as the real maker of sugar coated pills at that time.

It appears that Bullock and Crenshaw began selling Warner’s sugar coated pills under their name sometime in 1858 as evidenced by this notice dated May, 1858. Sounding introductory in nature, the notice starts out with:

The attention of Druggists and Physicians is particularly invited to the Pills of our Pharmacopeia, coated with sugar, which we are now able to supply…

This situation changed in the mid-1860’s when Warner purchased the wholesale drug business of John C. Baker at about the same time that his contract with Bullock and Crenshaw expired. Located at 154 North Third Street in Philadelphia, it was here that according to William R. Warner, Jr., his father began to manufacture and market his pills under the name and label of William R. Warner and Co.

The change had certainly occurred by 1867 as evidenced by this Warner advertisement that appeared that year in the “Handbook of the Great Manufacturers and Representative Mercantile Houses of Philadelphia.”

That same year, now in direct competition, both William R. Warner & Co. and Bullock and Crenshaw, exhibited their sugar coated pills at a September, 1867 exhibition sponsored by the American Pharmaceutical Association. In fact, both firms were listed directly adjacent to each other in the exhibition summary .

Warner remained on North Third Street for the next 10 years during which time he frequently marketed his sugar coated pills to the medical profession. An example of his marketing pitch appeared in the 1870 edition of the “Humboldt Medical Archives” under the heading “Notice to Physicians.”

The solubility of Officinal and other Sugar Coated Pills as made by us, is an indispensable quality, and a matter of so much importance as to command your special attention. An experience of thirteen years, with careful attention and study, has enabled us to achieve a perfection otherwise unattainable.

We claim this art of Sugar Coating, avoiding the necessity of drying so hard as to render them insoluble and inert make them permanent.

Being extensively engaged in the Wholesale Drug business, and in the manufacture of Standard Officinal Preparations, and New Remedies, in our own Laboratory, affords us facilities for supplying Physician’s orders with all articles of the purest quality at the lowest prices.

A discount of 25 percent will be made to Physicians on all orders for Pills amounting to $10.00 net. Less quantities will be sent by mail or express pre-paid on receipt of catalog prices.

Please specify our make (W. & Co.) when it suits your convenience to order elsewhere. Half freight paid on shipments of Drugs to distant points

A good customer could even get a “Pill Globe and Sample Bottle” along with his 25% discount..

It was also during this time that the company began to expand its product line well beyond sugar coated pills to include elixirs, fluid extracts and medicated lozenges among other things.

The company’s success on North Third Street ultimately lead to a period of expansion that began in the 1870’s. This expansion was documented in a January 9, 1908 feature on the business published in “The Pharmaceutical Era.”

In 1876 the business having outgrown the quarters on Third Street, the fine large building at 1228 Market Street was purchased, elegantly fitted up and occupied. About this time, on account of the extensive growth of the business, branches in London, England and New York City were opened, and these were soon followed by branches in Chicago, New Orleans, Atlanta, St. Louis, Denver, Portland, Ore., and Minneapolis, Minn.

In 1886 a large laboratory building at Broad and Wallace was erected and put into use, the business having outgrown its quarters on Market Street.

Renderings of both Philadelphia locations were included in the ninth edition (1897) of “Wm. R. Warner’s Therapeutic Reference Book for Physicians.” The top view depicts the Broad Street laboratory while the lower view is of Market Street.

The business operated out of both locations until 1899 when the Market Street building was completely destroyed by fire. The fire was described like this in the February 17, 1899 edition of the Philadelphia Inquirer.

Snow on many roof tops proved to be a blessing in disguise last night, when a great fire raged at Thirteenth and Market Streets, calling forth every energy of those who were battling with it to save a vast amount of property on all sides that for a time seemed doomed to destruction. It was a fire that brought out the entire department, that swept away an immense six-story building, or rather three in one, entailing a loss estimated at from $400,000 to $500,000….

The story included this sketch of the Warner building in flames.

As early as the next day the company had formulated a plan to move on as evidenced by this February 18, 1899 story in the “Philadelphia Inquirer.”

In regard to the future plans of the firm of William R. Warner & Co., Mr. William R. Warner, Jr., said last evening: “All the employees of our Market Street store, numbering some fifty, have been notified to report at our laboratory, at Broad and Wallace Streets. Those that are available for work in that line will be given employment immediately and the others will be kept on full pay. The laboratory will be made headquarters for the firm and all the offices will be removed there. We intend to rebuild at 1228 Market Street as soon as possible, but as to the size of the new building or its equipment I am not able to speak as yet. All the old men will thus be retained and none of them will suffer by our misfortune.

Less than a month later, on March 13, 1899, an item in the “Philadelphia Inquirer” announced that the company was fully back in business, now filling orders at their Broad Street laboratory.

Around the same time, a March 18, 1899 “Philadelphia Inquirer” story announced that Warner was planning a new 10 story building at 1228 Market Street, however, it appears the company never followed through on those plans and a year later, in June, 1900, the Montana Diamond Co. ran a ‘Philadelphia Inquirer” advertisement announcing their plans to move into a newly constructed eight story building at the 1228 Market Street location.

As far as I can tell William R. Warner & Co. never reopened another location in Philadelphia but instead continued to operate solely on Broad Street.

When Warner passed away in April, 1901, he left the company to his son, William R. Warner, Jr., who, as early as 1880 had been associated with the business, first as a cashier and later as a partner/principal.

In 1908, Warner Jr. sold the company to Henry & Gustavus Pfeiffer, who, at the time, owned a drug business in St. Louis. The Pfeiffer’s retained the William R. Warner & Co. name and continued to operate the business out of Philadelphia where, in 1910, it was listed with William R. Warner, Jr. as president, Henry Pfeiffer as vice president and Gustavus Pfeiffer as secretary/treasurer.

As late as 1916 the company was in the process of constructing a new headquarters in Philadelphia when the Pfeiffer’s acquired the Richard Hudnut Company of New York City. The acquisition was reported in the August, 1916 edition of the “Pharmaceutical Record.”

An announcement of interest to the trade was recently made by Richard A. Hudnut, who has sold substantial interest in Richard Hudnut to Messrs. H. Pfeiffer, G. A. Pfeiffer and G.D. Merner, of the firm of Wm. R. Warner & Co., of Philadelphia and St. Louis. Mr. Hudnut continues as president, and the business policies that have made the name “Richard Hudnut” famous in the perfume and toilet goods world will be continued…

The acquisition of Hudnut apparently motivated the Pfeiffer’s to change course and headquarter both the Warner and Hudnut companies in New York City. This led to the purchase of a large property on West 18th Street in Manhattan. The announcement appeared in the October 26, 1916 edition of the “Philadelphia Inquirer.”

W. R. Warner & Co. Leave City

Having purchased the whole of the old Altman store, 113 to 123 and 131 to 143 West Eighteenth Street, and 110 to 124 West Nineteenth Street, New York, William R. Warner & Co., manufacturing chemists, employing about 500 persons, will abandon their property at 639 North Broad Street, this city. The price paid for the new location is said to have been approximately its assessed valuation, $1,100,000, all of which was paid in cash…

Three days later, another announcement in the “Philadelphia Inquirer” put their new Philadelphia building, still under construction, up for sale.

This building is now being constructed on Willow, Seventh and Marshall Streets, Philadelphia, by Wm. Steele & Sons Co., for Wm R. Warner & Co., Manufacturing Pharmacists.

Their move to New York, as announced, will bring into the market for sale this new modern six-story, heavy concrete, sprinkled, loft building. The fact that the building is now under construction enables you to adapt it to your needs…

We are also offering for sale an unexpired lease on the present Wm. R. Warner & Co. plant at 639-41-43 N. Broad St. which continues for a term of years.

The building that was under construction 100+ years years ago, remains to this day. Here’s today’s view courtesy of Google Maps. It appears that a seventh story was added, taking the place of the roof top “Wm. R. Warner Co.” sign.

As early as 1917, the New York City directories listed both Wm. R. Warner & Co. and Richard Hudnut, Inc. at the West 18th Street address in Manhattan.

Both continued to be listed under their respective names at that location until 1950, when they were combined under a new corporation called Warner-Hudnut, Inc. At that point both Warner and Hudnut were listed as separate divisions under the Warner-Hudnut umbrella.

Five years later Warner-Hudnut merged with the Lambert Co., makers of Listerine, forming the Warner-Lambert Pharmaceutical Co. The merger was announced in the February 9, 1955 edition of the “Philadelphia Inquirer.”

Directors of Warner-Hudnut Inc., and Lambert Co. approved plans for a merger of the two companies, with the new concern to be known as Warner-Lambert Pharmaceutical Co.

The new company would have estimated annual sales of $100,000,ooo and assets of $45,000,000.

On the same day the merger was announced, plans to build a new factory in Pennsylvania were unveiled. According to the February 9, 1955 edition of Lancaster Pennsylvania’s “Intelligencer Journal” the plant was slated to replace the company’s West 18th Street facility.

The new plant, according to a Warner-Hudnut spokesman, will replace one operated in New York by the company. It will manufacture the firm’s nationally-known line of “Richard Hudnut” hair preparations and toiletries..

Last November the company announced it had contracted to sell its New York buildings to Webb & Knapp, Inc.

The new factory opened in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania in November, 1956. By then, the corporation was completely out of New York, having also moved their offices to Morris Plains, New Jersey earlier that year. The company had announced the move to New Jersey in the February, 1956 editions of several local newspapers.

When completed in mid-summer, this modern air-conditioned building will be the new headquarters of Warner-Lambert Pharmaceutical Company, now located in New York City. It is being built on a knoll across Mt. Tabor Road from Warner-Chilcott Laboratories, our ethical drug division.

The site will be the administrative center of our world-wide organization. From here we shall direct our five divisions in the United States, as well as our manufacturing plants in twenty-two foreign countries, and our sales agencies in one hundred more.

Over the next several years Warner-Lambert continued to grow through acquisition. According to a December 15, 1967 story in Philadelphia’s “Intelligencer Journal,” between 1955 and 1962 they acquired a number of well known brands that included Bromo Seltzer, Chiclets, Dentyne, Rolaid’s and Clorets.

Warner-Lambert merged with Park-Davis in 1970, ultimately becoming part of Pfizer in 2000.

Over the years I’ve found two Wm. R. Warner bottles. Both include “Philadelphia” in their embossing, dating them no later than 1916 when the company moved their headquarters to New York City.

The first is a small mouth blown vial. A little over three inches tall, it likely contained a small quantity of pills? The other, also mouth blown, is cobalt blue and six inches tall. It appears to have contained an effervescing salt called “Bromo Soda.”

The product was frequently advertised in the late 1880’s and 1890’s:

For The Speedy Relief Of Nervous Headache and Brain Fatigue.

F. C. M. Lendholt, 490 E. Tremont Ave., Pharmacist

Frederick C. M. Lendholt was born in Germany in the early 1870’s and arrived in the United States sometime in the mid-1880’s. As early as 1900, census records indicate he was living on Prospect Avenue in the Bronx with the occupation of “clerk.”

New York City directories continued to list his occupation as simply “clerk” up through 1908. I suspect for some, if not all of this time, he worked for long time Bronx druggist, Edward F. Miller. This 1899 advertisement described Miller’s business as:

The Oldest and Most Reliable Establishment in the Bronx

During much of the early 1900’s, in addition to 712 Tremont Avenue, which was also Miller’s home address, he also listed a second business address at 2007 Boston Road.

Towards the end of the decade, Miller incorporated the business as Edward F. Miller, Inc. By this time Lendholt, more than just a clerk, was apparently managing the business, as evidenced by the fact that Miller named him president of the new corporation. The incorporation notice was published in the March 24, 1909 edition of the “Paint, Oil & Drug Review.”

The N. Y. C. Copartnership and Corporation Directories continued to list the corporation in this fashion up through 1915. That year Lendholt left the Miller company and opened his own pharmacy on East Tremont Avenue. The announcement appeared in the May, 1915 edition of “The Practical Druggist.”

F. C. M. Lendholt has succeeded Wm. Isemann in the drug business at Bathgate and Tremont Aves., New York City. Until recently Mr. Lendholt was manager for E. F. Miller.

Located at 490 East Tremont Avenue, Isemann’s business had been listed there as early as 1907.

Lendholt continued in business for at least the next 18 years. As late as 1933 N.Y.C.’s business directory still listed him as a retail druggist at 490 East Tremont Avenue. Sometime after that he passed away, with 1940 census records listing Lendholt’s wife Katherine as a widow. That being said, the 1939/1940 Bronx Telephone Book continued to list the pharmacy, now F.C.M. Lendholt Inc., at the 490 East Tremont Avenue address. So, its likely that at some point after his death the business passed into the hands of a corporation. What became of it after 1940 is not clear.

Today, 490 East Tremont Avenue, at the corner of East Tremont and Bathgate Avenue is a vacant lot.

The bottle I found is a mouth blown prescription bottle made by the Whitehall, Tatum Co. (W.T.Co. embossed on the base). It exhibits Lendholt’s “490 East Tremont Avenue” address dating it no earlier than 1915 when Lendholt succeeded William Isemann at that address. Recognizing that it’s mouth blown, I don’t expect that it dates much later than 1915 after which I would expect a machine made bottle. This could put it in the initial batch of bottles ordered by Lendholt after assuming control of the business.

W. B. Riker & Son, Co., Druggist, 353 6th Ave., N. Y. C.

Prior to 1850, William B. Riker established a drug store on Sixth Avenue in Manhattan’s Flatiron District that he, and later, his son, William H. Riker, operated up through the early 1890’s. Subsequently, under several different management teams it would morph into the largest retail drug chain in the country all while continuing to exhibit the Riker name.

The senior Riker was a native of New York City who, according to his February 23, 1906 “New York Times” obituary was born in 1821 on Duane Street in lower Manhattan. Another obituary, this one published in the “New York Herald,” gets the story of his career started.

He entered the drug business early in life with John Meakin, then was associated with Dr. Hunter.

Riker likely served as a clerk for druggist Meakin, whose business was listed with an address of 511 Broadway during the early to mid-1840’s. His association with “Dr. Hunter” is less clear. There were two physicians named Hunter listed in Manhattan during the early to mid-1840’s. One, Adam T. Hunter, listed an address of 161 Hudson Street. The other, Galen Hunter, was located at 116 Sixth Avenue about a block or so from Meakin’s drug store, so I suspect he’s our Dr. Hunter.

According to most accounts, it was sometime in 1846 that Riker established his own drug store on Sixth Avenue between 21st and 22nd Streets. That being said, he’s not mentioned in the NYC directories until 1848/1849 when he was listed as:

William B. Riker, apothecary, 353 Ave. 6.

So suffice to say, he was certainly in business by the late 1840’s.

Not long after, in 1850, Riker partnered with a man named George W. Berrian, Jr. and the business operated under the name “Riker & Berrian” for the next 10 years. This April 13, 1854 “New York Times” advertisement named Riker & Berrian’s drug store as the Manhattan depot for a proprietary product called “Lyon’s Magnetic Powder and Pills.”

Sometime in 1860 or 1861 the Berrian name was dropped and throughout the 1860’s the business was simply listed as William B. Riker. Then sometime around 1870 he added his son’s name to the listing, calling it W. B. Riker & Son. To the best of my knowledge it was first listed this way in the 1871 Goulding’s Business Directory.

Late in the 1870’s the Riker’s began to manufacture their own proprietary products (or at least products that included the Riker name in the title). The first Riker named product I can find advertised was “Riker’s American Face Powder.” The ad appeared in the September 1, 1878 edition of the “New York Herald.”

The ad made the point that their face powder was “endorsed by the leading dramatic artists.” Several years later another advertisement, this one in the November 7, 1882 edition of the “New York Tribune,” went on to name several of these artists.

By the early to mid 1880’s the company had added a few more products sporting the Riker name as evidenced by this October 21, 1883 “New York Sun” advertisement.

Although their list of proprietary products was growing, up through the mid-1880’s company advertisements continued to refer to the business as simply “druggists” with the single address of 353 Sixth Avenue. This suggests that any manufacturing was done on a limited scale and the operation was conducted at the retail location on Sixth Avenue. That changed in 1887 when, now calling themselves “druggists and manufacturing chemists,” the company began listing laboratory/factories on Manhatan’s Clarkson Street and Washington Street. Located at the intersection of Clarkson and Washington, I suspect it was actually one location with addresses on both streets.

A November 11, 1887 advertisement in New York’s “Evening World” made it clear that by then their “American Face Powder” was one of many “Riker Preparations.”

The same advertisement went on to list several perfumes manufactured by the company as well.

It was around this time that the senior Riker turned the business over to his son as evidenced by his own testimony in a court case (William Comyns against William H. Riker, William B. Riker & Son Company and William B. Riker).

Q. When did you dispose of or withdraw from the business?

Witness: I gave a bill of sale; I sold my business out in 1887, December 15th; but I had been previously out of business; I had nothing to do, my son did everything, and took the entire profits for at least a year previous to my giving the bill of sale, and a formal bill of sale was drawn up.

According to testimony in the above court case, sometime in 1891, with William H. Riker now running the business, he leased the adjacent store on the corner of 22nd Street (355 Sixth Avenue) and altered the two properties into “one large gigantic drug store” where he added a soda fountain. An announcement to that effect appeared in the April 24, 1891 edition of the “Evening World.”

The new soda fountain aside, the business was almost certainly mismanaged by the son and, in 1892, he sold it to a syndicate of four individuals, one of which was an employee. The sale was documented in the “Findings of Fact” associated with the above court case.

That on said 12th day of February, 1892, said William H. Riker…made and executed a bill of sale of his said business so carried out at No.s 353 and 355 Sixth Avenue, and at 588 Washington Street, and of his stock and fixtures and other assets, and transferred it to Edward D. Cahoon, at the time, and for some years prior thereto, one of his clerks, and to Joseph H. Marshall, William C. Bolton and Daniel K. Runyon…

The “Findings of Fact” went on to say:

That on said 12th day of February, 1892, and for a long time prior thereto, the said William H. Riker was hopelessly and wholly insolvent and unable to pay his debts in full.

On a side note: In lieu of paying off his creditors with proceeds from the sale, William H. Riker signed the money over to his father who paid down mortgage debt he held on the Sixth Avenue property. This resulted in several court cases, including the one referenced above.

All that aside, it’s clear that the Riker name continued to hold value within the drug community because the new syndicate retained it, subsequently incorporating the business as the “W. B. Riker & Son, Co;” simply adding “Co.” to the former name. The incorporation notice was published in the March 23, 1892 edition of a publication called the “Chemist & Druggist.”

In 1897 the company moved their Sixth Avenue store approximately one block north to the corner of 23rd street where it was then listed with an address of 373 Sixth Avenue. The move was reported in the August 1, 1897 edition of the “Merck Report.”

Rikers drug store, which for half a century occupied the same site on Sixth Avenue below Twenty-second Street, has been removed to the reconstructed store at the southwest corner of Sixth Avenue and Twenty-third Street…

An early 20th century advertisement described the store like this:

Here five floors, devoted to the various departments of the Drug Store business, have probably accomodated more customers than have ever been served in a similar drug store space elsewhere in the same length of time.

In June, 1904 the company opened a second drug store in Manhattan, this one at Broadway and Ninth Street. Around the same time they also added five stores across the East River in Brooklyn when they consolidated their operation with that of the Bolton Drug Company. The consolidation was reported in the June 7th edition of Brooklyn’s “Times Union.”

The Riker drug stores of Manhattan and the Bolton drug stores of Brooklyn, have been consolidated. The change took place on Monday and was effected at a meeting of the Bolton Drug Company.

The combination made yesterday is enterprising and progressive, and a chain of fine establishments in Brooklyn will be one of the results. The main store of the Bolton Company is at 450-454 Fulton Street, and there are four other stores, each of which will be thoroughly remodeled and then operated along the lines of the Riker stores.

As promised, on November 12, 1904 the first remodeled Bolton store reopened under the management of the Riker Company. The public invitation appeared in the November 10th and 11th editions of several Brooklyn newspapers. It read in part:

We extend a cordial invitation to Brooklyn people – and to our Manhattan friends also – to visit the old Bolton Drug Store at 456 Fulton Street next Saturday, when it will be opened under the new Riker management.

The remodeled store will be beautifully decorated with flowers, an excellent orchestra will be in attendance all day, and there will be gifts worth coming from the ends of the town after. This opening is the first of several that are to take place in Brooklyn in the near future. The Bolton Drug Stores are now under the management of the Riker Drug Company, and are being remodeled and rearranged as rapidly as possible to conform to the Riker standards.

Don’t fail to call in at 456 Fulton Street on Saturday.

Beginning in 1907 the company also opened several additional stores in Manhattan: The locations and opening dates were summarized in a November 17, 1908 advertisement published in New York’s ” Evening World.” They were: 159 West 14th Street (May, 1907), 13 West 34th Street (Nov. 1907), 2 West 14th Street (Sept. 1908) and 6th Avenue and 42nd Street (Nov. 1908)

The lease of their 34th Street location set a record for rental prices on Manhattan’s 34th Street at the time. According to a May 8, 1907 story in the “New York Sun:”

RECORD LEASE NEAR WALDORF

RIKER COMPANY TO PAY $903,000 FOR WEST 34TH STREET STORE

Frank M. Winner, of the office of Alvan W. Perry, has leased for Bonwit Teller & Co. the first floor and basement of the building being erected at Nos. 13 and 15 West 34th St. to the William B. Riker & Son Company for a term of 21 years, beginning September 1, at a rental of $43,000. a year.

The building, which has been designed as a six story building for Bonwit, Teller & Co., will be altered to an eight story loft and office building, and the store, which is 40 feet in width by 125 feet in depth, is to have, in addition to this floor space, a mezzanine gallery throughout. The interior of the store is now in the hands of an architect, whose plans contemplate one of the largest and finest drug stores in the United States. The floors will be of mosaic, and the soda fountain, which will be the largest in the city, will cost $20,000 being finished in imported onyx.

Bonwit, Teller & Co. intended this building for their own use, but owing to the rapid increase in 34th Street values and the large rental offered by the Riker company they determined to turn the building into an investment.

This lease marks a still higher record price for stores in 34th St., being at the rate of about $1,100 a front foot, while the store at No. 1 West 34th St. recently rented by the same real estate office to the Mirror Candy Company, was at a rental of $1,000 a front foot.

An advertisement announcing the opening of the 34th Street store appeared in the November 1, 1907 edition of the “New York Times.” It serves to make the point that the Riker business offered much more than just drug prescriptions and cosmetics.

Among the features that make the new Riker Store the most complete and finest drug store ever operated are: a Soda Fountain that will be the handsomest and costliest in America; a complete Stationery and Engraving Dept. unsurpassed anywhere; an extensive Photo Supplies Dept., including expert developing and printing; a Hair Goods Dept. that will carry the most complete and finest line of human hair goods; a Cigar Dept. where all the best known brands will be sold at the lowest prices; a Candy Dept. where the finest confections will be sold at Riker prices; a Sub-Station of the Post Office, Telephone Books, and a Ladies Writing Room for the convenience of lady customers. Another feature will be the department of wines and liquors for home and medicinal purposes. The line of Toilet Goods will be unexcelled; the Prescription and Drug Dept. will be up to the high Riker standard; and a full line of rubber goods will be carried.

Integral to most, if not all of their stores, was the soda fountain. In 1906 a new fountain, called the “Innovation,” was constructed at their 23rd Street location, a description of which appeared in the “American Druggist and Pharmaceutical Record.” If anything, its clear that the fountain was certainly ornate!

This magnificent apparatus will cost $20,000. The dispensing counter will be 36 feet long, built of Pavonazzo or Rose Sienna Marble, trimmed with onyx, and with onyx pilasters having solid bronze bases and bronze capitals.The slabs of both the dispensing counter and of the display section are to be of Mexican onyx from the quarries of the New Pedrara Onyx Company, from which come large blocks of the choicest onyx of wonderful coloring and perfect soundness.

The display, or wall section, with its large French plate beveled mirrors, its gleaming onyx, with electrical illumination revealing the rich colors of the art glass and of the fine paintings above the mirrors, will be indeed a marvel of beauty. The refrigerator at the base of the wall section is to be of white Italian and Pavonazzo marble, relieved by onyx trimmings, and with silver-plated door frames enclosing panels of the French plate glass. The refrigerator is thoroughly insulated and equipped for cooling and storage purposes.

The mechanism of the fountain – its working parts – of draft tubes, coolers, syrup jars, work boards, etc., embody all that is latest and best in the soda fountain construction of the American Soda Fountain Company.

This photograph of the soda fountain appeared in a 1907 advertisement for the American Soda Fountain Company.

In 1907, at about the same time that the Riker Company was opening their new soda fountain, they acquired the Boston, Massachusetts business of Charles P. Jaynes & Company. The March 18th edition of the “Boston Evening Transcript” covered the announcement.

General Manager A. H. Cosden announces that the Riker Drug Company of New York has bought out the great Boston business of Charles P. Jaynes & Company, including all interests, assets, and retail drug stores. The corporate name of the new concern, it is announced, will be William B. Riker & Son Company.

The present retail business of the two companies is said to be in the neighborhood of $3,000,000 a year.

After the acquisition, the Riker company continued to open new stores in both New York and Boston. This advertisement announcing the opening of a new Brooklyn store appeared in the December 19, 1908 edition of the “Brooklyn Chat.”

In Boston, Riker advertisements continued to employ the locally familiar “Jaynes” name as evidenced by this May 18, 1909 “Boston Globe” advertisement that announced the opening of a new “Riker-Jaynes” drug store on Tremont Street. Not surprisingly, the new store included an onyx soda fountain.

The above advertisement put the mid-1909 Riker store count at 21; eight in Boston, seven in Manhattan and six in Brooklyn.

In 1910, the Riker business merged with a competing drug store chain called Hegeman & Co. The new company, called the “Riker-Hegeman Company” officially put an end to the “W. B. Riker & Son Company” name.

The merger announcement was included in the September, 1910 edition of the “Druggist Circular.”

The oft discussed and several times reported merger of the interests of Hegeman & Co. and the W. B. Riker & Son Company, both of this city, and the largest operators of chains of retail drug stores in the country, was consummated early in August. The new company formed by the union is known as the Riker-Hegeman Company. It is incorporated in this State with a capital of $15,000,000…

Competition between the two chains was most often suggested as the reason for the amalgamation. By then, according to an August 5th story in Patterson New Jersey’s “Morning Call,” the Riker chain included 25 stores in the Greater New York area alone, with 23 in Manhattan and Brooklyn as well as individual stores in the surrounding locales of Newark, New Jersey and Mt. Vernon, New York (Westchester County). At the same time, Hegeman operated 20 stores in the same area, many in close proximity to Riker stores.

This advertisement touting the drug chain appeared in the April 9, 1912 edition of the “Evening World.”

In 1916, the Riker-Hegeman stores were acquired by a newly formed company called the Liggett Company which in turn was owned by the United Drug Company. A cooperative controlled by over 7,000 retail druggists, the United Drug Company was the manufacturer of the “Rexall” product line.

The official announcement was published in the March 1916 edition of the “Pharmaceutical Era.”

In the offices of the United Drug Company in Boston on Saturday February 12th, was completed the formation of the new L. K. Liggett Company, operating the Riker-Hegeman, Riker-Jaynes, and the Liggett drug stores in the United States and Canada.

The new Liggett Company will operate stores in New York, Boston, and all other leading cities from Bangor, Me., to Detroit, Mich.

The Riker-Hegeman and Riker-Jaynes stores number 107 and the Liggett stores 45; the total of 152 stores making it the largest retail drug association in America today.

The Liggett Company is owned by the United Drug Company of Boston, at the head of which is Mr. Louis K. Liggett, the newly elected president of the Boston Chamber of Commerce.

The United Drug Company in turn is owned and controlled by 7,000 retail druggists throughout the United States and Canada, now operating stores as the “Rexall Stores.”

The 53 stores in Greater New York and all others bearing the Riker-Hegeman name will be known as the LIGGETTS-RIKER-HEGEMAN DRUG STORES. The 20 stores in Boston bearing the Riker-Jaynes name will be called LIGGETT’S-RIKER-JAYNES DRUG STORES. The Liggett stores in cities in which no Riker stores are present will continue under the original name.

The Pharmaceutical Era story went on to say:

The Riker & Hegeman and the Riker-Jaynes stores will sell Rexall goods whenever this can be done without infringing on the right of an established Rexall store. All the Riker stores of New York and Boston will of course, carry Rexall goods. There are, however, some towns where Riker stores have been established in competition with existing Rexall stores. In such cases the Riker store would not carry the Rexall remedies.

Early on Liggett’s continued to use the Riker-Hegeman name as evidenced by this July 7, 1916 “Brooklyn Daily Eagle” advertisement. Also note that the soda fountain business was still alive and well!

By the early 1920’s any mention of Riker-Hegeman in Liggett’s advertisements was a simple reminder that some of their locations were “former Riker-Hegeman stores.”

Not long after, the Riker-Hegeman name disappeared completely from their drug store ads.

The company grew under Liggett as evidenced by this assessment that appeared 15 years later in a June 17, 1937 “Pittsburgh Sun” story. By then the number of Liggett owned stores had grown from 152 to 450 and the Rexall retailers from 7,000 to 10,000.

From a small beginning the Liggett Drug Company, has grown into one of the largest institutions of its kind. It is an integral part of the United Drug Company of Boston, which distributes merchandise of its own manufacture to 10,000 Rexall agents and to 450 Liggett drug stores in practically every state in the union.

The great business is headed by Louis K. Liggett, founder of the original Liggett Company and now president of the United Drug Company.The 450 Liggett stores are under the executive direction of George M. Gales, who is president of the Liggett Drug Company. It is estimated that approximately 150,000,000 people are served annually by the 450 Liggett stores.

In 1941, a man named Justin Dart took control of the organization. Prior to that Dart had been general manager of the Chicago-based Walgreen drug chain. A story in the March 19, 1977 edition of the Muscatine (Iowa) Journal picks up the story from there.

In 1941, Justin Dart…left Chicago and Walgreen for Boston and United Drug, where he took command of what was then the largest retail drug chain in the country.

Dart brought order and direction to United Drug, which was a losely organized holding company that included manufacturing, franchising and retailing through wholly owned stores operating under various names – Rexall, Liggett, Owl and Sontag were some of them.

Dart centralized operations around the Rexall name. He made Rexall a national advertiser. Then, in 1945, he moved himself – and the company’s headquarters – to Los Angeles. The corporate name was changed to Rexall Drug in 1947. Dart once ensconced in Los Angeles, proceeded to build an entirely different company.

Wheeling and dealing at a furious pace, he bought and sold companies, acquired others, disposed of others, merged others. He entered chemicals, plastics, cosmetics, glass containers and resort development.

It appears that the last vestige of the “Riker” name was one of the casualties of Dart’s “wheeling and dealing” when, in 1969, the company, now referred to as Dart Industries, sold their ethical drug division called Riker Laboratories to the 3M Company. The sale was reported in the July 9th edition of the “Philadelphia Inquirer.”

Dart Industries and Minnesota Mining & Manufacturing Co. officials have agreed in principle to purchase by Minnesota Mining of Riker Laboratories, Ethical Drug Division of Dart Industries, for 1,500,000 common shares of Minnesota Mining. The transaction has a value of slightly over $156 million…

Dart said the proposed sale of Riker would not materially affect 1969 earnings of Dart Industries and should contribute importantly to the company’s capital resources.

The 1977 “Muscatine Journal” feature went on to chronicle the last chapter of the story.

Rexall was dropped as a corporate name in 1969, replaced by Dart Industries

In 1972, 50 company owned Liggett drug stores were sold.

In 1973, 12 company owned Drug King stores in California and Oregon were sold.

In 1976, all of Rexall’s Canadian operations were sold.

And in 1977, the last of the lot went. Rexall’s manufacturing facilities in St. Louis, its franchise drug division and its contract manufacturing operations were all sold. They had sales of $50 million last year.

Justin Dart heads a company that will do better than $1.5 billion of business this year, none of it under the Rexall name.

While the Riker name is long gone, signs of the company’s existence still remain in the form of several current Manhattan buildings that once housed Riker stores.

Unfortunately, the building that housed Riker’s original location at 353 Sixth Avenue (now 675 Avenue of the Americas) is not one of them. Construction of the building located there today, called the “Mattel Building,” began in 1900, so it’s possible that its planned construction facilitated Riker’s 1897 move up Sixth Avenue to 373 Sixth Avenue (now 711 Avenue of the Americas). Located at the southwest corner of 23rd Street and Sixth Avenue, the building there now almost certainly dates back to Riker. This rendering of it appeared in an 1899 publication called “A Pictorial Description of Broadway,” found in the New York Public Library’s Digital Collection. http://digitalcollections.nypl.org

…and this description of it appeared in a 1907 advertisement:

Here five floors, devoted to the various departments of the Drug Store business, have probably accomodated more customers than have ever been served in a similar drug store space elsewhere in the same length of time.

This building located there today, sans a few architectural modifications at the roof level and a fire escape added on the 23rd Street side, certainly fits the bill.

It appears that at least two other Manhattan buildings that housed Riker stores remain to this day as well.

The building at 15 West 34th Street, expanded from six to eight stories by Bonwit Teller to accommodate the Riker store, was sometimes referred to in newspaper articles as the “Riker Building,” A sketch of the store front was included in this November 1, 1908 advertisement that announced its opening.

Below is a current view of the building courtesy of “Google Earth.” The only thing missing is the “Riker” sign above the store front.

Finally, here’s the September 18, 1908 advertisement announcing the opening of the store at 2 West 14th Street.

I’m pretty certain it was located somewhere in this row of stores that occupy the current building located on the south side of 14th Street just west of Fifth Avenue (possibly a combination of the 3rd and 4th store fronts from the corner).

The bottle I found is mouth blown and about three inches tall. The main body is two inches in diameter and it abruptly narrows to one inch near the lip. It’s embossing includes the name “W. B. Riker & Co.” as well as the original 353 Sixth Avenue address. This results in a very narrow date range for the bottle.

The presence of “Co.”in the embossed name dates it no earlier than 1892 when William H. Riker sold the business and the initial address of 353 Sixth Avenue dates it no later than their 1897 move to 23rd Street (373 Sixth Avenue).

Frank Parker, Pharmacist, East Islip, N. Y.

Frank Parker was a pharmacist by trade who lived on New York’s Long Island in the late 1800’s and early 1900’s. During this time he operated retail drug stores in Islip Village (1880 to 1884), Babylon (1884 to 1887), East Islip (1893 to 1897) and Central Islip (1906 to 1913). He also held several political positions in Islip including Town Supervisor from 1898 to 1902..

Born in 1850, census records indicate that Parker immigrated to the United States from England in 1869. His portrait appeared in the March 21, 1908 edition of the “South Side Signal.”

Parker began his pharmacy career not on Long Island, but in Brooklyn, New York where he was first listed in Brooklyn’s 1872/1873 Directory with the occupation “drugs.” Then, sometime in 1876 or 1877 he established his own drug store at 244 Broadway (corner of 8th Street) in Williamsburg, Brooklyn.

The capital needed to support the business during these early days was provided by a man named Francis Fenelon Murray. Their limited partnership agreement naming Parker as “General Partner” and Murray as “Special Partner” was published in several September and October, 1878 editions of Brooklyn’s “Times Union.”

Among other things the agreement stated:

The amount of capital which the said FRANCIS FENELON MURRAY, as such special partner, has contributed to the common stock of said partnership, is the sum of one thousand dollars in cash.

The agreement associated the business with a second Brooklyn address of 118 Wythe Avenue. While Parker was never listed at this address in the Brooklyn directories, a notice announcing the drug store’s opening certainly confirms its existence.

A copy of the notice was supplied by Parker’s grandson after reading a previous version of this post.

More than just a druggist, at least by today’s standards, this December 9, 1878 advertisement in the Brooklyn “Times Union” made it clear that Parker’s inventory included a product called “Dr. Underhill’s Original Pure Wines” produced in Westchester, New York’s Croton Point Vineyard.

Imported wines were also sold as evidenced by this label also provided by Parker’s grandson.

In addition to being a retailer, Parker also manufactured his own line of patent medicines.

It was sometime in 1880 that Parker initiated a move from Brooklyn to Long Island’s Islip. That year the 1880/1881 Brooklyn directory continued to list his drug business at 244 Broadway however, it now listed his residence as “Islip, N.Y.” The following year neither his residence or business were mentioned in the Brooklyn directories.

That same year, a June 19, 1880 story in Amityville N. Y.’s local newspaper, the “South Side Signal,” made it clear that by then his drug business was up and running in Islip. The story appeared under the heading “Islip Village.”

Excitement runs high over the liquor license granted to Mr. Parker, the new druggist. Mr. Parker says, however, that he only intends to sell spirits as medicine. He claims to be alive to the fact that any other course would be suicidal to himself as a responsible druggist. He is not a believer in a tippler’s drug store, so he says. “We shall see what we shall see.” One thing is certain, if the place is kept as a liquor saloon, three fourths of the people here will move on him sharp, short and decisive. For our own part, we say let Mr. Parker have fair play. A drug store should sell spirits medicinally, and we have no good reason yet to believe that this one will do otherwise.

A story that ran almost three years later in the February 3, 1883 edition of the “South Side Signal” clearly demonstrated that he was still running his Islip business at that time so he apparently didn’t ruffle any feathers with alcohol sales. The story also provided some evidence of Parker’s marketing talents.

Mr Wilson is painting Hygeia, the goddess of health, on the side wall of Parker’s drug store. The painting is attracting considerable attention.

In March, 1884 Parker was one of three individuals from Islip that registered a trademark for a patent medicine with the name “Bait.” U. S. Patent Office records described it as “a perfume for the breath.”

A “Bait” label provided by his grandson exhibits Parker’s Brooklyn address of 244 Broadway, suggesting that sale of the product dated back to the late 1870’s.

In 1884 Parker moved west to Babylon N. Y. and opened a drug store there. An announcement to that effect appeared in the May 1, 1884 edition of the “South Side Signal.”

Another drug store on Deer Park Avenue is an assured fact. Frank Parker, lately located at Islip, assures us that he expects to build on his recent purchase and begin business without delay. “The more the merrier.”

True to his word, less than three months later the July 19th edition of the “South Side Signal” announced that construction was underway.

The contract for building the new drug store, on Deer Park Avenue, for Mr. Frank Parker, of Islip, has been awarded to Samuel M. Kellum. The building will be two stories in height and 20×40 feet in size. Ground has been broken.

Parker remained on Deer Park Avenue in Babylon for a little less than three years during which time he continued to exhibit a talent for drawing people to his store. One such example appeared in the June 12, 1886 edition of the “South Side Signal.”

The store of Frank Parker, on Deer Park Avenue, was crowded on Monday evening, with people who gathered to watch the unfolding of a night-blooming cereus. The beautiful flower began to unfold soon after 6 P.M. and continued to do so until about 9 o’clock when it was at its height of beauty. After that hour it would have gradually closed its petals, but Mr. Parker removed it from the plant, and placed it in alcohol thus preserving it in its full beauty. Mr. Parker who is an enthusiastic and successful florist, had for five years watched the growth and development of this plant, which had never blossomed until this week. His courtesy in permitting the public witness the unfolding of this beautiful flower was greatly appreciated by all present.

Ultimately Parker sold the Babylon drug business in 1887. The sale was reported in the April 9, 1887 edition of the “Suffolk Weekly Times.”

Frank Parker has sold his drug business at Babylon to Lester A. Wyatt of Islip.

According to his grandson he spent the next several years in New York City where he managed a drug store for the Lawrence Company at Sixth Ave and 26th St. and later at Broadway and 30th St. (Note: The 1887/1888 NYC directory listed a drug firm called Lawrence, Keyser & Co. with addresses on Sixth Avenue and Broadway. This is most likely the N.Y.C. company referenced by his grandson.)

His story returns to Long Island in 1893 when the March 11th edition of the “South Side Signal” ran this story under the heading “East Islip:”

Frank Parker, of Babylon, who some years ago was engaged in the drug business in Islip Village is about to embark in business in East Islip – or is at least reported to have leased the store of Thomas Walters for that purpose. He is desirous of being appointed Postmaster, and a petition is being circulated in his behalf.

Less than a year later the February 24, 1894 edition of the “South Side Signal” announced that Parker had been appointed to the postmaster position. It appears from the story that the appointment created quite a stir at the time.

The appointment of Druggist Frank Parker to be postmaster here (East Islip) was like a bolt of lightning from a clear sky to the unterrified Democracy of East Islip. To say the least it was unexpected. William H. Brady had received the unanimous endorsement of the County Committee and was the choice of a large portion of the Democracy of the village. There were a few of the followers of the ruling party who strenuously objected to Brady’s appointment, but as no third candidate was advanced it was thought by all that the latter would be appointed, or that Postmaster Frazer would hold over. Mr. Parker had never voted in the district until last fall, having been a resident of this vicinity about nine months…The giving of this office to a comparatively stranger and the “turning down” of a young man who was born and brought up here, and who has also been a worker for his party, and who in addition had the sanction of the County Committee is certainly strange politics.

For three years, Parker ran the post office while continuing to operate his East Islip drug business, both of which were apparently quartered in the space he originally rented from Thomas Walters. This all changed in 1897 when a June 26th story in the “South Side Signal” announced that he had just sold the drug business..

The drug business formerly conducted by Postmaster Frank Parker has been sold by the latter to Robert Topping, who will remove the same to the store of his brother, David H. Topping. An addition is now being built on the rear of the store to be used exclusively for the pharmacy. Mr. Topping has been in the latter business in the past and will no doubt do well here. Mr. Parker removed the post office on Thursday from the Walters Building to the store of David H. Topping, where he will remain during the balance of Postmaster Parker’s term.

Parker remained in East Islip for another seven years during which time he not only served out his term as postmaster, but three terms as supervisor and one as town clerk. He also ran for Assembly on two occasions but lost both times.

His only connection with the drug business during this time was filling in for drug store owners who were either ill or out of town. One such occasion, when he filled in for druggist Frank W. Race, was documented in the October 26, 1901 edition of the “South Side Signal,” under the heading “Islip.” Coincidentlly, Race’s pharmacy was at the same Islip location as Parker’s original Long Island drug store.

In the absence of Druggist Frank W. Race during the past week, Supervisor Parker has been compounding prescriptions at the latter’s pharmacy.

In 1905 Parker moved again, this time back to Central Islip where he ultimately bought Race’s drug business. The story begins with an October 14, 1905 story in the “South Side Signal.”

Former Town Clerk Frank Parker has decided to embark in the drug trade at Central Islip and will shortly open a store in the vicinity of the depot. We trust he may be successful in this venture.

The following spring this item appeared in the March 3, 1906 edition of the South Side Signal. It appears to have been written at the time he officially opened for business.

Frank Parker has purchased the pharmacy business formerly conducted by Frank W. Race and will hereafter conduct the same. The location is a good one and Mr. Parker will doubtless build up a profitable trade. It will be remembered that he conducted the same business at the same stand some twenty years ago.

An item published three months prior, in the November 14, 1905 edition of the “South Side Signal,” suggested that he built a new store at that location prior to his March, 1906 opening.

Boss Wright has the contract for the erection of the new drug store and residence of Frank Parker at Central Islip. The building will be 18×35 feet in size.

This undated post card, captioned “Parker Pharmacy, Central Islip,” fits the description.

Census records from 1910 indicate that Parker was still operating the drug store at that time.

Ultimately, Parker sold the Central Islip drug store in 1913 as evidenced by this item that appeared in the December 3, 1913 edition of a publication called the “Paint, Oil and Drug Review.”

Islip, N. Y. – John H. Allen of Central Valley, N. Y., bought the drug business of Frank Parker and will move his family here.

In 1916, the “ERA Drugggists’ Directory” named Harrison M. Jones as the proprietor so apparently it changed hands again shortly after.

On a personal note, according to an item published in the March 21, 1908 edition of the “South Side Signal,” Parker was twice widowed and about to be married for the third time.

Babylon friends of ex-supervisor Frank Parker of Islip will be interested in the announcement of his engagement to Miss Clara Woodworth of that place…Mr. Parker has been married twice previously. His first wife passed away while the couple were residents of Babylon, and his second wife, while they were making their home in East Islip.

1920 census records indicate that by then, Parker, along with his third wife Clara, had left Long Island and were living in Oakland, California. He passed away in 1930.

The subject bottle is roughly eight ounces in size with a tooled crown finish. It’s embossed with the East Islip location dating it between 1893 and 1897. Recognizing that the crown finish wasn’t patented until 1892 and likely took several years to gain popularity it’s likely that the bottle dates more toward the 1897 date. The bottle is shaped exactly like a mineral water bottle, suggesting that Parker bottled and sold mineral water as part of his East Islip business.

Fraser & Co.

Fraser & Co. was a New York City based business that maintained both a drug manufacturing facility and a retail pharmacy. They were pioneers in the manufacture of measured doses of medicines in tablet form.

The founder, Horation Nelson Fraser, was born in Providence, Rhode Island in 1851.

After spending much of his childhood in Davenport, Iowa, he returned to Providence where soon after he entered the pharmacy business. His early education, along with his early work history were summarized in a March 9, 1903 feature published in the “American Druggist and Pharmaceutical Record.”

…he was apprenticed to the drug business, engaging with W. R. Blanding, at that time one of the foremost and most respected pharmacists in New England. When his term of apprenticeship ended he continued his studies and soon after matriculated at the Philadelphia College of Pharmacy. Immediately after obtaining his diploma he went to Chicago and became connected with the firm of E. H. Sargent & Co., then, as now, the leading firm of retailers in the West. After a brief experience in the Western metropolis he moved East and entered the employment of Caswell, Hazzard & Co.

It was while working for Caswell & Hazzard that the seeds of his future were sown when he met Dr.Robert M. Fuller who, at the time, was working on the idea of administering medicines in tablet form.

According to Fraser’s own words found in the May 11, 1899 edition of the “Pharmaceutical Era.”

I think it was in the year 1879 that Dr. Robert M. Fuller invited me to call at his office at 136 West 42nd Street. On my arrival he told me that for sometime past he had been working on the subject of dividing medicines into quantities of desired size for exact and practical dispensing and administration.

For some reason, which I have never considered it proper to ask him, he confined himself in his conversation entirely to the mechanical part of the invention (for clearly it was an original idea) and thoroughly described to me the process and application of his method. It consisted first in thoroughly triturating the substances together, and second, in moulding this trituration into divisions to which he had already given the name “Tablet Triturates.”

The 1903 “American Druggist and Pharmaceutical Record” feature went on to explain that it was Fraser who was credited with manufacturing them in such a manner as to make their production commercially viable.

Mr. Fraser assisted him in the mechanical part of the work, and put the method into practical operation. After vainly endeavoring to get his employer, Mr. Hazzard, interested in the development of Dr. Fuller’s idea, Mr. Fraser decided to branch out into business for himself and start the manufacture of tablets by the Fuller process in connection with the conduct of a retail pharmacy. Leaving Caswell & Hazzard & Co. on July 21, 1881, he engaged in business by opening the pharmacy at 208 Fifth Avenue, and with a plant consisting of a mortar and pestle and twenty hard rubber molds he commenced the manufacture of tablet triturates, besides making a bid for such prescription business that might come his way.

An advertisement for Fraser’s Tablet Triturates found in the 1889 “Medical Directory of the City of New York” included his sales pitch to the medical profession:

According to this circa 1886 advertisement, the tablets were originally sold

in four ounce glass stop bottles each containing 1,000 tablets. They are all the same size but contain different doses.

For several years Fraser both manufactured tablet triturates and operated his pharmacy business out of the basement at 208 Fifth Avenue under the name Fraser & Co. This circa 1886 advertisement described the business as:

Manufacturers, Importers and Wholesale Dealers in Medicines and Physicians Supplies

Sometime in late 1887 or 1888 Fraser moved the tablet manufacturing operation to 311 West 40th Street and by 1890 had incorporated that piece of the business under the name of the “Fraser Tablet Triturate Mfg. Co.” That year, the NYC Copartnership and Corporation Directory named Fraser, president and Giles A. Manwaring, secretary of the newly formed corporation. Shortly afterwards the manufacturing operation moved again, this time to 23 Vandewater Street. By 1890, a wholesaler named Chas. Truax & Co. needed 15 pages in their catalog to cover the menu of Fraser’s Tablet Truturates. Here’s the first of the 15 pages:

Continued growth dictated another factory expansion in 1895, this time across the East River in Brooklyn. An April 10th story in the “Brooklyn Daily Eagle” provided the details.

…The transaction which has just been completed is with the Fraser Tablet Triturate Manufacturing Company, whose present place of manufacture is on Vandewater Street and which will within a few days take possession of the Brasher property on Ninth Avenue between Eighteenth and Nineteenth Streets. The property has a frontage of 200 feet on Ninth Avenue and a depth of 325 feet on Nineteenth Street and 275 feet on Eighteenth Street. The three story brick buildings and engine house will be put in order by the new owner for immediate use. The consideration is placed at $200,000.

Horatio N. Fraser, president of the manufacturing company, says in regard to his purchase: “I have sought Brooklyn as the scene of our industry as the most desirable within a reasonable distance from New York City. We will start work as soon as possible and will give employment to about two hundred and fifty Brooklyn people on an average. Our present place in New York is entirely inadequate for our business and, in my judgement, Brooklyn presents the most desirable attractions for manufacturing industries hereabouts. I feel that it will be only a very short time before many other New York concerns will do as we have done and secure a site in Brooklyn while they may.”

According to an item in the December 10, 1895 edition of the “American Druggist and Pharmaceutical Record,” Fraser was up and running there by the end of the year. The story mentioned that their facility occupied 30 city lots and was three times the size of their Vandewater Street location.

Meanwhile, back in Manhattan the pharmacy portion of the business continued at 208 Fifth Avenue where it was listed under the name Fraser & Co. It remained there until the early 1890’s when the company leased an entire building further north at 262 Fifth Avenue.

In 1901 the Fraser Tablet Company was incorporated to take over both the pharmacy interests of Fraser & Co. and the manufacturing operations of the Fraser Tablet Triturate Mfg. Company. The September 14, 1901 edition of a publication entitled the “United States Investor” described Fraser’s operation at the time of incorporation.

The company was recently incorporated by Horatio N. Fraser, under New York state laws, his object being to unite the different branches of his business. These interests conducted under the names Fraser & Co., and the Fraser Tablet Triturate Manufacturing Co., have been taken over by the new company. The company’s business not only includes the manufacture of drugs and medicines, as might be inferred from its name, but in addition, it engages in the preparation and sale of bags, chests, show cases, books, catalogues, sick room and medical supplies, etc.

New York City’s 1902 Copartnership and Corporation Directory listed the new company with capital of $1,500,000 and named Horatio N Fraser as president. The listing named “Fraser & Co.” as the Registered Trade Name (RTN) of the corporation.

Their retail pharmacy at 262 Fifth Avenue, which included both a prescription department and analytical department/laboratory was described in the 1903 “American Druggist and Pharmaceutical Record” feature.

Besides prescription compounding proper, which calls for the services of nine licensed pharmacists, an extensive department of analytical and bacteriological examination is conducted. The average monthly receipts from this department alone amount to $1,500.

The feature included this view of their laboratory…

…and the March, 1902 edition of a publication called the “Medical Examiner and Practitioner” laid out the services it provided.

The 1903 feature went on to say:

…the income from all departments of the retail pharmacy amounted to $85,000… The store is unique, original and complete – a prescription work shop, with all counters and work open to inspection: no fancy goods, no perfumes, no confectionary, no soda water, no trade sundries, but everything in the way of medicines and sick room comforts that a physician wants.

The feature also included this view of their prescription department…

In 1901 the company also established another pharmacy location, this one in Chicago, Illinois at 28 E. Washington Street.

The 1901 “United States Investor” story summed up their turn of the century operation like this.

The company states the assets are about $489,000. It also says that there is a $40,000 mortgage, but there has always been sufficient stock sold to clear it off. From what we can learn, the company appears to be in a prosperous condition, and is well thought of. The company is well known among the wholesale druggists, and the trade speaks well of Mr. Fraser and the company, of which he is the head.

The above turn of the century assessment appears to have been made around the time that the company was at its peak. Several years later a fire in their Brooklyn factory may have served as the catalyst for a downturn. The fire was reported in the February 22, 1904 edition of the “New York Sun.”

The three story brick factory building of the Fraser Tablet Triturate Manufacturing Company on Eighteenth and Nineteenth Streets, between Eighth and Ninth Avenues, Brooklyn was entirely destroyed last night by fire, which caused $350,000 damage, on which there is insurance for about $250,000. The damage to a large extent was due to the fact that there was an extremely small pressure of water. The property was on the highest point in Brooklyn and the water pressure was low anyway…

Mr. Fraser said that there were over 2,000,000 tablets in the factory. Two hundred persons are out of employment as the result of the fire.

Afterwards the company continued to list their address on 19th Street in the directories so they apparently rebuilt at either the same or an adjacent location. That being said, the fire certainly had an impact on the business as evidenced by this item that appeared in the September 15, 1905 edition of the “Wall Street Journal” under the heading “Answers to Inquiries”

Is there any market value for the stock of the Fraser Tablet Co., of New York? – F.N.C., Omaha

Answer – An official of the Fraser Tablet Company states that since their fire, which has put them back somewhat, there has scarcely been any demand for their stock, none of which however, has been sold by them below par. The company is making money but it will be impossible for them to pay dividends until some of their fire loss is paid up.

By 1908 their New York pharmacy business had moved out of 262 Fifth Avenue after which they moved around quite a bit, listing Manhattan locations at 563 Fifth Avenue (1908 to 1910), 583 Fifth Avenue (1911 to 1916) and 5 East 47th Street (1918 to 1919). This advertisement referencing their 583 Fifth Avenue location appeared in the December, 1916 edition of a publication called “Military Medicine.”

Throughout that period they continued to maintain their Brooklyn manufacturing site usually with the address of 453 19th St.

Sometime in the early 1920’s the company was sold to a cooperative concern of pharmacists called the Ruth-Patrick Drug Company. The sale was mentioned in a December 8, 1921 feature on Ruth-Patrick in “The Buffalo (N.Y.) American.”

A company started five years ago in San Francisco in a very small laboratory without a large capital. Today it is a $10,000,000 corporation, the third largest manufacturing drug concern in the world. It is now operating the largest pharmaceutical laboratory on the Pacific coast and another one in Chicago, besides the one in New York City. It has just purchased the Fraser tablet company one of the oldest and largest tablet concerns in the world.

At this point Fraser, according to his November 9, 1942 obituary published in the Brooklyn Daily Eagle, retired. He would live in retirement to the age of 90. The new management team listed in the 1922 Brooklyn and Queens Copartnership and Corporation directory consisted of H. Lees Smith as president and S. R. Break as secretary-treasurer.

Three years later, the company was declared bankrupt and sold at public auction. By then, the company’s menu of medical preparations had been reduced to medicated candies and mints. The December 2, 1925 edition of the “Brooklyn Daily Eagle”provided the details.

FRASER TABLET CO. SOLD AS BANKRUPT.

At a public sale before Bankruptcy referee Theodore Stitt, the Fraser Tablet Company, manufacturers of domino mints and medicated candies at 453 19th St., this boro, has been bid in for $111,000 by John J. McCue of west Orange N. J. The purchase price represented $40,000 cash and an assumption of $71,000 of obligations not dischargeable in bankruptcy…The Fraser Company was adjudicated bankrupt on Nov. 10 last.

Another December 2, 1925 story, this one in the Brooklyn “Times Union,” included this vague reasoning for the bankruptcy, which suggested mismanagement by the cooperative.

The Fraser Tablet Company was petitioned into bankruptcy about two months ago when its managers discovered that the working capital was insufficient to maintain it as a going concern. It has recently suffered somewhat from financial manipulation which had depleted its capital.

The next year McCue took out a mortgage on the Brooklyn factory as evidenced by this June 17, 1926 story in the “Brooklyn Daily Eagle.”

MORTGAGE ON SOUTH BROOKLYN PLANT

Robert A. Martin Company, Inc., has procured for Fraser Tablet Company, a first mortgage loan of $85,000 on the borrower’s chemical manufacturing plant located on 18th and 19th Sts., between Prospect Park West and 9th Ave., this boro, a plot fronting about 200 feet on each street.

Four years later, a notice published in several November, 1930 editions of the “Times Union” announced that a judgement of foreclosure had been issued on the property and it was being offered for sale on November 28, 1930.

The Fraser Tablet Company apparently survived and according to N.Y.S. Supreme Court records (Dr. Miles Laboratories, Inc. against American Pharmaceuticals Company, Inc. and Philip Kachurin), sometime in 1930 the company moved its plant and business to Manhattan, where they were listed under the heading “patent medicines” at 11 Park Place in 1932 and 1933. Later the company moved the plant to Queens where, throughout most of the 1940’s they’re listed in Richmond Hill with an address of 84-40 101st St. By the early 1950’s I don’t see them listed.

As far as I can tell the company continued to maintain a Manhattan pharmacy now listed again under the Fraser & Co. name, up through at least 1960. The location in the 1930’s was 251 4th Avenue and later from the 1940’s up through 1960 it was 502 Park Ave (59th St.and Park Ave).

Their long time pharmacy location at 262 Fifth Avenue was recently a vacant lot, this view of which is courtesy of Google Earth (on the right). The adjacent building (on the left) is clearly visible in both today’s photo as well as the 1903 Pharmaceutical Era photo.

In the future the site will accommodate one of the tallest buildings in Manhattan, a 1,043 foot residential tower currently under construction.

As far as I can tell, their Brooklyn factory site was ultimately incorporated within the right-of-way of the Prospect Expressway which was built in the late 1940’s and 1950’s so it was likely acquired and condemned by New York State around that time.

The bottle I found is mouth blown, no more than 2-1/2 inches tall and is embossed on one side “FRASER & CO.” Advertisements as early as 1886 were illustrating this type of bottle.

That being said, these early ads only mentioned a four ounce size containing 1,000 tablets. Later, according to this May 11, 1899 advertisement in the “Pharmaceutical Era,” they were packaging them in amounts as low as 100.

A labeled example containing 100 tablets that recently appeared on the internet appears to closely match our bottle.

Burnett, Boston (Burnett’s Extracts, Joseph Burnett & Co.)

The name “Burnett” embossed on the subject bottles is short for Joseph Burnett, a Boston druggist, who established an apothecary and later manufacturing business in Boston during the mid 1800’s. He’s generally credited with manufacturing and marketing the first commercially available flavoring extracts in the United States.

His chief product, Burnett’s Vanilla Extract, was still being offered for sale under his name in the late 1970’s.

A story in the November 1, 1881 edition of The Fitchburg (Mass.) Sentinel relayed this commonly held version of the product’s origin.

The extensive business of this house, which has extended to nearly every civilized country in the world, had its origin in what might be called an incident, or an accident some thirty years ago. At that time Mr. Joseph Burnett, the founder of the house was doing a large apothecary business on Tremont Street, opposite the Boston Museum.

A lady who had lived in France and had become accustomed to French methods of cookery, came into Mr. Burnett’s store one day and asked him if he could not make a decent Flavoring Extract for her, as she found those in common use abominable. She wanted an extract of vanilla. This was made which pleased the lady very much, and from this simple beginning has grown a business…

Likely some combination of both fact and legend, the above serves as a good background for Burnett’s story, a story that starts not with him, but another New England druggist named Theodore Metcalf, who gave Burnett his start in business.

Born in Dedham, Massachusetts on January 21, 1812, Metcalf began his career in the Hartford Connecticut apothecary of E. W. Bull where he initially served as an apprentice and later as Bull’s partner. That partnership was dissolved in January, 1836 with the dissolution notice appearing in the January 23, 1836 edition of the “Hartford Courant.”

According to Metcalf’s obituary, published in the “American Druggist and Pharmaceutical Record,” he subsequently moved to Boston and in the Spring of 1837 established an apothecary business at 33 Tremont Row (later called Tremont Street). Not long after he opened the doors Metcalf hired Burnett as a clerk, jump-starting what would ultimately be a long and successful career. A feature on Burnett, published in the October, 1894 edition of a publication called “The Spatula” provided some early details.

Mr. Burnett who was born in Southboro, Mass., in 1819, received as good an education as the schools of those days afforded, and began his career as a pharmacist in 1837 as a clerk in the store of Mr. Metcalf. It was not long before the latter saw the advisability of taking him into partnership which continued until Mr. Burnett became entire owner of the establishment

A notice announcing the transfer of ownership from Metcalf to Burnett, dated January 1, 1845, was published in several January editions of the “Boston Medical and Surgical Journal.”

N0. 33 TREMONT ROW, JANUARY 1, 1845

The subscriber has disposed of his stock and place of business to Mr. Joseph Burnett, his principal assistant for the past six years.

To his regular customers no commendation of his successor is necessary, as his competency and accurateness are well known to them, and he respectfully solicits a continuance of their favors to the establishment.

To the medical profession he takes pleasure in saying that the duty of conducting the business could not fall into hands more capable.

THEODORE METCALF

JOSEPH BURNETT respectfully informs the medical profession, that he will endeavor, by close attention to business, to sustain the reputation of the old establishment, and to deserve their confidence and favor.

Over the course of the next ten years the business was listed in the Boston directories as simply “Joseph Burnett.” As far as I can tell Burnett operated the business as a sole proprietorship until 1853, at which time he admitted two partners, William W. Goodwin, and Peter J.Hassard. The partnership announcement, dated January 1, 1853, appeared in several January and February editions of Boston’s “Daily Evening Transcript.”

During this ten year period the business primarily served as an importer/wholesaler/retailer for a wide variety of items as evidenced by their advertisement that appeared within Boston’s 1851 Commercial Directory.

Several of the company’s late 1840’s to early 1850’s newspaper advertisements provide a sampling of the products they carried at the time.

The company also marketed a variety of items directly to the medical profession. According to the following 1853 advertisement that appeared in the “Boston Medical and Surgical Journal” this included:

genuine drugs, pure chemicals, select powders, superior extracts (both solid and fluid), and other desirable pharmaceutical preparations

In fact, a story written years later in the October 13, 1946 edition of the “Boston Globe” credits Burnett with supplying the “pure sulphuric ether” used by W. T. G. Morton when he performed the first successful operation under anesthesia in 1846.

If that wasn’t enough, you could stop by his apothecary and have a flavored soda if you were so inclined.

Finally, their 1851 directory advertisement also mentioned “extracts for flavoring pies, jellies, etc.,” so they were certainly manufacturing them, though likely on a small scale, during the early 1850’s (some accounts say as early as 1847). That would all change on January 1, 1855 when, in an effort to focus on the manufacturing side of the business, Burnett sold the apothecary back to Theodore Metcalf. A notice announcing the sale appeared in the January 10, 1855 edition of the “Boston Evening Transcript.”

Directly adjacent to the dissolution notice was an advertisement for Metcalf’s reacquired apothecary.

Soon after, Burnett partnered with William Otis Edmunds and established the firm of Joseph Burnett & Co. Within a year the company was manufacturing ten different varieties of flavoring extracts as evidenced by this December 20, 1855 advertisement in the “Boston Evening Transcript.”

FLAVORING EXTRACTS. Messrs. Joseph Burnett & Co., Tremont Street, manufacture very superior Flavoring Extracts of perfect purity, and great strength. The articles are guaranteed to be free from the poisonous oils and acids which enter so largely into the composition of many of the fruit flavors now so freely offered in the market. The varieties are Lemon, Orange, Nectarine, Peach, Celery, Vanilla, Bitter Almond, Rose, Nutmeg and Cinnamon. For family use in blanc mange, custards, pies, etc., or for confectioners and hotel keepers to use in ice creams, jellies, etc. They are not only true to their names but are prepared from fruits of the best quality, and are so highly concentrated that only a small quantity is required. They have all the freshness and delicate flavor of the choice fruits from which they are prepared.

A list published in a July, 2, 1859 “Boston Evening Transcript” advertisement, indicated that by then the menu had been upped to 12 by adding ginger and cloves.

More than just flavoring extracts, by the late 1850’s the company was also manufacturing several medicines and toiletries, all of which were advertised together as “Burnett’s Standard Preparations.”

In case you’re interested here’s an alphabetized list of uses that “Burnett’s Standard Preparations” were touted to address. The list appeared in the 1866 edition of their annual marketing publication called “Burnett’s Floral Handbook and Ladies Calendar.” .

Joseph Burnett & Co. was initially listed in 1856 and 1857 at 41 Tremont where they were literally next door to (or cohabitated with?) Metcalf’s apothecary. In fact, this early Burnett advertisement for “Kalliston,” that appeared in the April 14, 1856 edition of the “Boston Evening Transcript” named Metcalf as one of Burnett’s first retailers.

That being said, Burnett apparently outgrew his Tremont facilities rather quickly and by 1857 moved the company to 27 Central Street where, by 1881, a November 1st feature on the business in the “Fitchburg Sentinel” described a company whose production of vanilla extract alone consumed one fourth of the entire Mexican product. The feature went on to say:

Some fifty persons are now directly employed by the concern in the varied work of bottling, labeling, packing and boxing their various Flavoring Extracts and Toilet Preparations, all of which are of altogether superior nature.

By this time, Burnett’s sons Harry, and John M. were actively involved in the business and in fact as early as 1882 the Boston directories name them, not Joseph, as the company principals. This suggests that while it was likely that Joseph continued to oversee the business, by then it was his sons who were running its day to day operations.

Ultimately full authority passed to the brothers in 1894 when Joseph Burnett died in a tragic accident. The August 13, 1894 edition of the “Boston Evening Transcript” told the story.

Dr. Joseph Burnett of Southboro, well-known in Boston, was fatally injured at Marlboro yesterday afternoon. He was driving on Maple Street and when near the electric car station his horse became frightened by an electric car and Dr. Burnett was thrown out, striking upon his head. He was taken to his country home at Southboro in an unconscious condition and died at seven o’clock last evening.

That same year the business moved again, this time to 36 India Street, where, now incorporated, it was listed in the 1895 Boston directories with a new name; the Joseph Burnett Company. The directories named John M., president and Harry, treasurer, that first year.

It was also in the early 1890’s that the company began advertising a line of food coloring’s called “Burnett’s Color Pastes.”

For coloring Ice Creams, Frostings, Jellies, Custards and all kinds of confectionery.

This 1898 advertisement that appeared in the “Boston Cooking School Magazine” advertised their Extracts and Color Pastes side by side. The advertisement provided this menu of their colored pastes: Leaf Green, Fruit Red, Golden Yellow, Damask Rose, Carmel, Chestnut, Imperial Blue and Mandarin Orange.

By the turn of the century the business was emphasizing their extracts and color pastes at the expense of their medicines and toilet preparations, some of which were likely being scrutinized as a result of the food and drug laws being enacted around that time. One clue supporting this shift in focus is evident in the font size used in the company’s advertisement that appeared in Boston’s 1905 Commercial Directory. By this time the medicinal and toilet items appear in the advertisement as no more than afterthoughts.

Nine years later only their extracts are mentioned in the 1914 directory advertisement.

Although their line of extracts included many flavors, by the early 1920’s according to a feature on the Burnett business in the November 3, 1921 edition of an advertising trade magazine called “Printers Ink”

The company is chiefly known to advertisers as makers of Vanilla Extract. Vanilla has been the advertised leader for many years.

The “Printers Ink” feature went on to say:

The line includes, however, many other flavors as well as spices and color pastes. Burnett’s spices are a comparatively recent addition to the line and they are being featured in the advertising this fall.

As promised their fall advertising campaign included their new line of spices as evidenced by an advertisement that appeared in the December, 1921 edition of “The Ladies Home Journal.”

It was also in 1921 that the company moved again, this time to a new factory at 437 D Street in South Boston.

Later, in the mid 1930’s they added several products having to do with ice cream, “Burnetts Liquid Ice Cream” and “Burnett’s Ice Cream Mix.” The Ice Cream Mix was advertised in the “North Adams (Mass.) Transcript” on May 23, 1935.

Up through the mid-1940’s, the Burnett family continued to remain heavily involved in the management of the company. John T. Burnett succeeded his brother John M. Burnett as president in 1906, serving in that capacity until his death in 1929. He was succeeded as president by Henry P. Kidder, with a third generation of the Burnett family, George H. Burnett, serving as treasurer. This arrangement continued until 1946 when the company was sold to American Home products. The sale was reported in the May 2, 1946 edition of the Boston Globe.

Am. Home Products Acquires Burnett Co.

H. W. Roden, vice president of American Home Products Corporation, announced today acquisition of the Joseph Burnett Company of Boston, for 8,918 capital shares of American Home Products, parent of American Home Foods, Inc.

The newly acquired company was the outgrowth of a Boston drug store, founded by Joseph Burnett, who, in 1847, produced vanilla flavoring as an experiment.

Less than a year after the acquisition a fire caused significant damage to the company’s D Street factory. The fire was reported in the April 2, 1947 edition of the “Boston Globe.”

Seventy-five persons, many of them women were driven out of the building at 437 D St., South Boston, today when fire caused damage of more than $50,000 to the building and extract stores of the Joseph Burnett Company.

The fire started when a spark from an electric motor ignited alcohol fumes, fire officials said. It started on the fourth floor of the seven story brick building and spread along pipes down to the third floor.

It appears that the fire put an end to Burnett’s manufacturing operations in Boston. The following year, in 1948, the Joseph Burnett Co., was listed in the Boston directories as a division of American Foods with simply an office address at 43 Leon, Rm 310, in Roxbury. That same year their D Street factory was no longer listed.

On a side note, the structure apparently survived and today is called the Seaport Lofts. Here’s a recent photograph courtesy of Google Earth.

Where American Home Products moved Burnett’s manufacturing arm is not clear, but in the 1950’s they did put out several new products under the Burnett name. One advertised in the early 1950’s was Burnett’s Instant Puddings.

As far as I can tell, the Burnett brands were later acquired by the Doxsee Food Corporation. One last mention of the brand that I can find appeared in a July 29, 1987 “Boston Globe” feature entitled “Ask the Globe,” where one question/answer item made it clear that by then Burnett’s Vanilla Extract, and likely the entire Burnett brand, had been discontinued.

Q. My wife prefers to use Burnett’s Pure Vanilla Extract in her cooking but has been unable to find it in local stores. Can it be purchased anywhere? – C.C., Milton.

A. Ed Lindsay of the customer service department at Doxsee Food Corp. in Baltimore says his firm no longer produces Burnett’s, but instead makes an imitation vanilla extract.

The last newspaper advertisement for “Burnett’s Vanilla Extract” that I can find appeared in March, 1979, suggesting that the late 1970’s/early 1980’s is the product’s likely end date. The advertisement, for a grocery store called Warehouse Foods, listed it along with several other products under the heading “Baking Time.” The ad appeared in the March 19th edition of a Wisconsin newspaper called the “Oshkosh Northwestern.”

I’ve found two Burnett bottles. One is two ounces in size, the other four ounces. Each is mouth blown with a tooled finish, likely putting their manufacture date somewhere in the late 1800’s to early 1900’s.

In the 1870 Floral Handbook and Ladies Calendar the company advertised that their flavored extracts were available in five sizes, one of which is two ounces.

Coupled with the fact that the smaller bottle matches almost exactly the vanilla extract bottle exhibited in this 1902 advertisement found in a publication called the “American Kitchen Magazine” leads me to believe it contained some variety of flavoring extract.

The four ounce bottle does not fit one of the advertised sizes so, assuming they didn’t add a four ounce size in the late 1800’s, it likely contained one of Burnett’s other “Standard Preparations.” The bottle closely resembles the size and shape of the bottle in this 1879 Kalliston advertisement found in their Floral Journal and Ladies Calendar so I’m leaning in that direction.

It certainly did not contain their Cocoaine or Cologne Water as both were sold in uniquely shaped bottles.