by Holly Horton –
One of the things often uncovered by those who search for historic artifacts in the United States are bottles from the 19th and early 20th centuries. Bottles from before 1800 are less common, because there were fewer of them made and because glass was valuable enough to be melted and reused.
Middlesex County Museum and Historical Society in Saluda has a modest collection of 19th and early 20th bottles that have been found in Middlesex County. Bottles for so-called patent medicines make up most of the collection. Patent medicines were medicines that were sold without prescription; despite the name most did not have patents. The late 19th century was a high point of the trade in patent medicines; a boom was made possible by a gullible public, the lack of government regulation of manufacturers’ claims (prior to 1906), and the invention of new ways of manufacturing bottles.
Most patent medicines were manufactured in cities such as Philadelphia, Chicago, New York and San Francisco. Middlesex County made its contribution to the trade, however. One important manufacturer of medicines diversified his Binghamton, N.Y., medicine business and acquired farms in New Market and Middlesex, Virginia. A former postmaster from a family with deep roots in Middlesex began to produce his own medicine on a much smaller scale.
On Wednesday, Feb. 7, at 11 a.m., the Middlesex County Museum and Historical Society will sponsor a Zoom presentation on the uses and abuses of patent medicines and the finding of evidence of their use and production in Middlesex. Please email the museum at info@middlesexmuseum.com and a link will be sent to you for this informative presentation.
The Rev. Robert W. Prichard, Ph.D., vice president of the Middlesex County Museum and Historical Society, will be the primary speaker. He traces his interest in 19th and early 20th century bottles to efforts to renovate the historic home in Locust Hill that he and his wife Marcia Prichard purchased in 2000. He found bottles in walls, under the house, and in the yard, and became curious about them. The Prichards later donated the collected bottles to the Middlesex County Museum.
Bob Prichard hopes to be joined by a local resident who has made collecting historic artifacts in Middlesex and adjacent counties a serious hobby.
(Holly Horton is executive director of Middlesex County Museum and Historical Society.)
