Robby Raccoon
Trash Digger
I picked this straw-tinted one up at the (local) bottle-club's annual picnic yesterday in thinking that the mouth looked like a much older style:"FRANCIS / BROS. // PROPRS. // UHRICHSVILLE // OHIO" it has lightly embossed on the tiny panels. If I could find the "Official Gazette" mentioned here and in the next link, I might be able to learn more on them. But I cannot find much-- two sites claim to have a bottle with the same embossing as mine, but one is down (webiste was circa 1997?) and the other gives me this: "This site may be harmful to your computer! Back to safety." This page from 1884 has a list saying that the Francis Brothers of Uhrichsville patented a Dr. Wilson's Anti-Bilious Cathartic Cordial. A Cathartic Cordial is like a laxative. Cathartic otherwise has to do with releasing emotions (according to Google.) Uhrichsville is a town with under 6,000 people in it and is under 3 miles in size; it was established in the 1830s just like my own town over in Michigan. I had to redo my pics because of the light embossing, but everything is clearly readable in person:
It's tooled-top, not applied. The base has that interesting feature photographed above. I'm wondering what anyone can tell me on the base (how was the bottle made, what made the interesting indentation on the bottom,) and I'm wondering if anyone can tell me some history on the Francis Bros./what my bottle wasruggist or Patent Med? 1880s? Common or Scarce?