|
|
|
|
|
|
 |
 |
 |
Earliest Mississippi Bottles |
Natchez BottlesNatchez is the county seat of Adams County Mississippi. It is situated on a bluff overlooking the Mississippi River about 220 miles north of New Orleans. It was one of the earliest settlement in the Mississippi Valley being founded by the French in 1716, ceded to the English in 1763, and acquired by the United States after the Revolutionary War. It was the capital of the Mississippi Territory and the Sate of Mississippi until 1822, when it was replaced by Jackson. During the Antebellum period, it was home to many of the wealthiest in the State, who built large mansions in the city. It was embattled during the Civil War and was surrendered to Union forces in September of 1862. the city recovered quickly after the War, but being a transportation hub, suffered as the railroads replaced boat transportation on the Mississippi. McPheeters, Cartwright & CompanyThe Firm of McPheeters, Cartwright & Company, also known as the Physicians' Drug Store, consisted of James A. McPheeters, Samuel A. Cartwright, Thomas R. Mitchell, and Montroville Wilson Dickeson. The firm was briefly in business from October 1845 to September 1846. The firm was introduced on October 28, 1845 Mississippi Free Trader and Natchez Gazette: PHYSICIANS' DRUG STORE, This grouping of men included some prominent and nationally known individuals. They will be addressed in the order that they left the partnership.
By January of 1842, if not earlier, his explorations led him to Natchez, Mississippi and its Indian mounds. In addition to Indian mounds, he excavated fossils of creatures of the Ice Age in the same vicinity. He appears to have practiced as a physician in Natchez and even founded a signing school for "Sacred Music." In 1845, he was a founding member of the Physicians' Drug Store only to withdraw early in 1846. That same year, he raised quite a stir in the scientific community with the finding of a part of a human skeleton in the same strata of ice aged creatures. By 1848, he had returned to Philadelphia and was practicing as a physician and lecturing at the Philadelphia College of Medicine. This is supported by the fact that in March of that year, he appears on the dead letter list in Natchez. In 1850, with a 348 foot long panorama of the Mississippi Valley that he commissioned and his artifacts, he went on a lecturing and teaching tour. In 1854, he returned to Philadelphia again and practiced as a physician, geologist, and at one point ran the Philadelphia City Museum. In 1855, he discovered a large zinc deposit near Nashville and acquired the property and set up a company to mine it. He was a collector of many ancient things including fossils, minerals, Chinese ceramics (he had one of the largest collections in the United States), and ancient American and Colonial coins. To that end, he wrote the American Numismatic Manual in 1859 and had a number of coins and medals minted. In 1864, he was selling a patent medicines, including one called Huile D'Or, for which a bottle exists. He is considered one of the earliest American archeologists and exhibited at the 1876 Centennial Exhibition. Dickeson never married and died in April 14, 1882. His collection of journals and artifacts was acquired by what is now the University of Pennsylvania Museum in 1899.
Samuel was a published author on subjects that included Southern medicine and Negro diseases. He had a series of essays published in 1826 that documented yellow fever epidemics in Natchez in 1823 and 1825 and his observations and treatment of patients. Other essays followed on pneumonia, cholera and other "Southern diseases." He won a prize for his cholera essay in 1826 from Philadelphia and a gold medal from Harvard University that same year. He was a prolific publisher of articles in medical journals New Orleans, Boston, Philadelphia, and London. Some of his writings on Negros indicated that they needed to be enslaved and were controversial at the time. He created the diseases of drapetomania and dysaesthesia aethiopica and published articles on them in journals and medical publications. These were republished and supported by others wanting to justify the institution of Slavery. It is hard to believe someone who was trained by an abolitionist at an impressionable age, would have such racist theories. On March 22, 1828, Cartwright entered into a partnership with with James A. McPheeters, which ended soon after and then was a founding member of the Physicians' Drug Store in 1845. He left that partnership the following year and moved to Louisiana in 1848 where he was a professor at the University of Louisiana. On January 8,1863, Cartwright joined the Confederate Army of Virginia as a major in the Adjutant Generals Department as a medical inspector. He reported to General J. E. Johnston. He was nominated for Lieutenant Colonel and was rejected by the Senate on May 1. He died the next day on May 2, 1863 at Jackson, Mississippi. His estate as valued in the 1860 Census was $200,000. He has to be on of the rare men to have served in the both the War of 1812 and the Civil War; about 50 years apart!
James married Anne Coalter, eldest daughter of Chancellor Harper and Catharine Carter, on April 30, 1840. Out of this union was born five children, including Catherine Harper McPheeters Dickson (1841–1869), Maria Elizabeth (1843-) Frances Coalter McPheeters (1845–1879), Wesley Harper McPheeters (1847–1871), Annie Cartwright McPheeters (1848–1919). McPheeters appears to have returned to Natchez in April of 1842 based on the following advertisement in the Natchez Daily Currier: DR. McPHEETERS. Operating a medical practice by himself must have been taxing and by the end of 1844 McPheeters partnered with Anthony G. Thornton, also of Cynthiana, Kentucky, in a medical practice on Wall street in the Tremont Building, which McPheeters apparently owned. Soon after, he was a founding partner of the Physician's Drug Store. McPheeters was not as published as his two partners, but he was recognized as the leading physician in the treatment of diseases of the "Southern Climate." In 1825, he published an "Essay on the Nature of the Medical Sciences" based on a speech he gave to the Medical Society of Natchez. He was also acknowledged as introducing the use of large does quinine in the treatment of malaria. James died on May 23rd, 1848 at age 49, leaving behind a family with five children under the age of seven and three older children from his first marriage in their teens. His son, William Augustus, went on to follow in this father and grandfather's calling and became a physician serving in the Civil War and later in Natchez. James' partnerships with Thornton and in the Physicians Drug Store were dissolved in after his death. The last and surviving partner of the Physicians' Drug Store was Thomas Reeves Mitchell. Mitchell was the practical druggist in the group. He was born in Virginia in about 1816 to Alexander William and Elizabeth (Fowler) Mitchell. His father studied medicine in Edinburg, Scotland and later moved to Virginia and acquired much property there. Thomas is purported to have "attended a New England boarding school preparatory for Princeton and was graduated from Princeton College at the age of eighteen." His first business venture appears to have been joining Wilson & Jones in Philadelphia as Wilson, Jones & Company in January of 1838. They were commercial merchants with a warehouse on Girard's Wharf. The firm was reported to have imported drugs in addition to other goods from the Southern United States and West Indies. The decision was not a prudent on as the firm went bankrupt in 1841 and included a personal bankruptcy of Mitchell. He married Elizabeth Marguerite Ralston, the daughter of William Ralston and Lavissa Smith of Natchez, Mississippi, on October 10, 1839 at Philadelphia. The were fourteen children born to this union and included: George Ralston Mitchell (1841-1894), Elizabeth Mitchell (1843-), Ellen M Mitchell (1848-1929), John Field Mitchell(1850-1909), Thomas Reeves Mitchell Jr (1851-1919), Robert Mitchell (1857-), Christina Mitchell (1858-), David Percy Mitchell (1860-1944), Emma Mitchell (1862-), William Mitchell (1867-) and two unknown children. The 1841 bankruptcy likely resulted in the young family relocating to Natchez Mississippi soon afterwards. A few years later, Mitchell joined the partnership that formed the Physicians' Drug Store, where he was the resident druggist for eight years and the last of the original four partners when the business was sold in 1853. After selling out his business in Natchez, Mitchell went on to partner with Thomas L. Clark, as Mitchell & Clark, in the druggist business at 72 Gravier street in New Orleans, Louisiana. This partnership operated from 1863 to June of 1854 with Mitchell being the surviving partner. By 1855, Mitchell had moved the drugstore to 43 Magazine Street. Sometime between 1855 and 1857, Mitchell and family moved to Missouri and in 1860 were in Salt Springs where Mitchell operated a farm. Mitchell was a Southern Sympathizer during the Civil War and must have wanted to return to the South. They relocated again, in about 1867, to Goose Creek, Harris County, Texas where they operated a cotton plantation. On January 1, 1871, Mitchell and Walter F. Blunt purchased the wholesale and retail drug business of Barstow & Morris at Market and Twenty-Second Streets in nearby Galveston. This partnership appears to have been short lived. The exact date of Mitchell's death has not yet been found, but the children were dispersed to relatives after the death of Thomas' wife Elizabeth on July 24, 1875. So we have to assume that Thomas preceded her in death. At the corner of Main and Wall Streets, the Physicians' Drug Store was a fixture in Natchez and advertised heavily during its many years of serving the community. In addition to filling prescriptions and selling drugs and chemicals, the firm sold a number of diverse products including leeches, sheet music, grape cuttings, fruit trees, garden seeds, white and red lead, paint, varnish, paint brushes, matches, steel pens, paper, envelopes, perforated cardboard, ink, ink stands, blacking, glue, candles, lamps, lamp chimneys, lamp shades, lamp oil, all sorts of brushes, nursing bottles, all kinds of medial instruments, devices and pumps, Alum and Blue Lick Mineral Waters, window glass, supporters, elastic belts, spices, extracts, salad oil, mustard, bakers' chocolate, shaving soap, fancy soaps, perfumery, cologne, cut glass toilet bottles, hair tonics, plasters, lozenges, but not patent medicines of unknown composition. We also know that they manufactured and bottled mineral waters. Supporting this assertion, the follow ad ran for about a year in the Mississippi Free Trade including this advertisement on August 12, 1848: NOTICE The original partnership was shorted lived. Dickeson withdrew from the firm 74 days after its founding on January 10, 1846 as recorded in the January 22, 1846 Mississippi Free Trader: NOTICE is hereby given that Dr. M. W. Dickson has withdrawn from the firm known under they style of McPheters, Cartwright, & Co., or Physicians Drug Store, Natchez, and has no further agency in the past or future business of the firm. The business will in the future be conducted in the future by Thomas R. Mitchell under the style of "Physician's Drug Store." It is not certain that the exit of Dickeson was on good terms. The firm continued to go by the name of McPheeters, Cartwright & Company in addition to the Physicians' Drug Store, but that too would not last. The end of McPheeters, Cartwright & Company was with the withdraw of Samuel A. Cartwright on December 1, 1846 as documented in the December 5th, 1846 edition of The Mississippi Fee Trade: NOTICE. The new partnership was also known ad McPheeters & Mitchell and retained the Physicians' Drug Store name. Both names were used concurrently in advertising in local newspapers. With the death of McPheeters, the the McPheeters & Mitchell partnership was dissolved two months later as documented in the Natchez Weekly Courier on July 29, 1848: DISSOLUTION. The following advertisement, which appeared in the May 24, 1853 Mississippi Free Trader, ended the era of the Physicians Drug Store, when Mitchell, the last surviving partner sold the business to Wallace & Elliot: Notice The subsequent owners of this drug store, Wallace & Elliott (1853-1855), Hugh Elliot & Company (1855-1858), Elliot & Meng (1858-1859), J. S. Meng (1859-1861+), Mallery & Castle (-1864) and C. Mallery (1864-1868+), continued to use the name Physicians Drug Store name. This business is not to be confused with a similarly named Physicians' Drug Store in Montgomery, Alabama. The only known bottle from this firm, a green soda with a tapered collar and improved pontil, appears to be of Northern manufacture; likely of a Philadelphia or South Jersey glass works. Based on the information above this bottle would date 1845-1846 only making it the oldest mineral water bottle from Mississippi. There is also a pontiled medicine bottle embossed Physicians Drug Store Natchez. An interesting note that came out of my research was the polar opposite attitudes towards slaves by some of the doctors in this circle of business partners. As noted above Cartwright was a leading scholar on the racist believe that Negros were inferior due to diseases of their race. After McPheeters death, one of his slaves, Peter, ran away and was later captured in Port Gibson. His description included the note that his "back some what marked with the whip." Mitchell was noted as having moved to Missouri and owned slaves there. When the state went free, he wanted to return to the South, which he did after the end of the Civil War and established a cotton plantation in Texas. Juxtapose these three with Thornton who also moved to Missouri with a slave, who he emancipated in 1857 and married having nine children. Natchez Firms With No BottlesW. Dobson Operated a soda fountain and bottling works on Main Street from May thru at least September 1849. J. H. Kump & Company J. H. Kump and E. S. Clark were in business by August 1864 and dissolved on October 19, 1864. Clark was the surviving partner. E. S. Clark Surviving partner of Kump & Co. and was in business from October 19, 1864 thru at least December, 1866 and likely into the first half on 1867, but was gone by August of that year. Operations had shifted to Mobile, Alabama. John Parsons Operated the Natchez Mineral & Soda Water Manufactory at 119 Canal in 1872. <<= Previous Next =>> |
Montroville Wilson Dickeson was born in
Philadelphia on June 18, 1809 to William Thomas and Rachel
Sarah (Wilson) Dickeson. He spent his boyhood in Gloucester County, New
Jersey. He fostered an interest in natural history and as a
teenager, discovered several unique fossils in South Jersey that
were brought to the attention of the scientific community at
Philadelphia. He attended the University of Pennsylvania
Medical School during the 1833-34 session. He further studied medicine under Joseph Parrish and
worked at the Philadelphia Dispensary. He practiced as a
physician thru 1839 on the western end of Market Street, when the
pull of exploration led him the Mississippi Valley and the study of
Indian mounds. 
A second member of the firm was Samuel Adolphus Cartwright.
Like Dickeson, Cartwright was a transplant from a more northern state. He was
born on November 3, 1793 to Rev. John Slye and Nancy Ann (Trammell)
Cartwright in Fairfax County, Virginia. He learned the
practice in medicine in Philadelphia at the University of
Pennsylvania and under the apprenticeship of Dr. Benjamin Rush and
later in Maryland under the abolitionist Dr. John Brewer.
While in Maryland he volunteered to serve in the War against the
English. He
practiced first in Huntsville, Alabama and in 1822 moved to Natchez
Mississippi. There he set up a practice and was in partnership
with Dr. D. Lattimore until March 16, 1825, when the pair split and
went into practice individually. Shortly thereafter, he married Mary Wren on May 10,
1825. His children included an infant who died in 1826,
Fenton, born on October 12, 1828 and died the following year,
Oswald who was born on September 1, 1830 and died in 1834, Adolphus
born on October 8, 1833 and died in 1834, Samuel Adolphus,
born July 4, 1836 and died
on December 9, 1838, Mary Grant, the only of two children living past 4
years of age, was born in July, 1836 and died in 1889, and Anna
Mercer who was born on July 23, 1845 and died in 1890. 