I thought I'd share a few pics of an 1870's Western Medicine I picked-up last wk. while rummaging through some boxes of junk over in the San Joaquin Valley. I can't recall ever seeing one of these with the label still intact. The original cork and some of the dried-out product also remain. The bottle is embossed on the other side:
DR E. CHAMPLAIN LIGNEOUS EXTRACT PATENTED. I was hoping the label had the name of the town on it, but it doesnt. Several very knowledgeable Western collectors have told me in the past that Dr Champlain was located in Cloverdale, Ca. (just North of Santa Rosa). There is a street in that town bearing his name, but that's about all I knew about him up until I found the labeled bottle. We now know what the good Dr. looked like, and a little more about the product. His bottles are definetely western-blown, and if I had to guess, I would say they were probably ordered and distributed by Redington & Co. (purely speculation based on age and similarity in form to some of Redington's bottles.).
This example looks great on my shelf next to the non-labeled sparkler I dug in Santa Rosa 25 yrs ago !
AP
I have not actually seen any advertising for this product and the bottles all seem to be a nice deep color with great crudity. I do know that in the late 1970s or early 80s, a few examples of this bottle turned up with labels, and a few had their original wrappers and boxes. This might be where the Cloverdale connection came from. I have not examined any of these specimens.
ReplyDeletePretty good memory Max. Actually he was a physician (credentials?} who came to California with one thing in mind - gold. After spending 20 years in the hills Levings came back to San Francisco in the early 70's. After about four years of acting like a doctor, and selling some medicine, he went back to mining for another twenty years. This time he only stayed in S.F. about 2 or 3 years, hence the tooled top version of his bottles. The last I know of him he claimed he had discovered coal near San Diego about 1896 and likely died in SoCal prior to 1900. His son is buried in Mt. Hope Cemetery in San Diego, which is probably the reason he went south, but I don't think he and his son were all that close.
DeleteWow, that’s cool AP, nice find! There was a small wooden box found in the attic of what was believed to have been Champlain’s house in Cloverdale. In such box were a dozen of these bottles complete with their own cardboard boxes and pamphlet wrapped around each bottle. I don’t know that Reddington had anything to do with this guy as distribution was narrow with most known examples turning up locally.
ReplyDeleteIt’s interesting to note that I’ve dug these bottles on more than one occasion in multiples from mid to late 70s pits. In some of those digs we found identical bottles of the same exact shape, base mould marks, etc. only un-embossed. Such evidence would suggest that his product also came in blank bottles which may be earlier. I’ve seen some beautiful crude examples of these bottles over the years.
This comment has been removed by the author.
DeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
DeleteThanks for the info GP ! Yeah it was a rush finding it !! I bought all the junk they had, so as not to draw any attention to the Champlain bottle haha!!. Didnt want to blow it !! Threw half of it in the recycling tote.
ReplyDeleteThe cache you mentioned, must be related to the labeled examples Miller's Extra referred to. Since we're on the subject of Champlain bottles; how many non-labeled examples do you think are in collections? I've only dug the one example(the one you and I dug together 25 yrs ago). I've seen about 5 or 10 others over the yrs. You've probably seen a few more, since you're located closer to the source.
Do you recall if the pamphlets or box had the town of Cloverdale written on either?
AP
It’s only a guess on the numbers of non labeled but I’d say less than 20. I’ve never heard of many being found outside this area but I did hear one was found in Sac. There’s a town about 30 miles away and another over on the Coast where the majority of these bottles have turned up. In fact I don’t ever recall seeing a piece in Cloverdale but then again getting a hole there of that vintage is more rare than those bottles. I suspected they were mid 70s and after a little digging I came up with this:
ReplyDeleteOn August 13th 1872 a D. Mayon & E. Champlain of Cloverdale, Cal. had a medical patent issued to them by the U.S. patent office for their “Medical Compound for Dyspepsia etc.” It’s possible that the joint partnership bottled their first product in un-embossed bottles and later after Mayon left the Dr. ordered embossed bottles. Only a guess to maybe explain why the blank ones are sometimes found with embossed ones. The product was a short lived venture that likely only lasted a couple of years which would account for the rarity of these bottles.
On the same day in 1872 when the Champlain patented his medicine a "G.W. Brown of Portland Oregon" patented a bitters. Got any of those?
There is one of those "Dr. G.W. Brown's" bottles around here somewhere...
ReplyDeleteSure would like to see that patent info. I Know he died in August of 1873.