Unknown New England Glass factory’s contract with Clapp & Townsend July 15, 1848

16 November 2013 (R•112413)

I agree to make for Clapp & Townsend and deliver at the Boston Rail Road Depot at Greenbush (NY) between the first of October next and May following. One thousand gross (of) Townsend Sarsaparilla Bottles to be sound, to be delivered in equal monthly proportions.

Hello, my name is Don Carpentier and I love your site!!! I live just outside of Albany, New York and I have been collecting bottles since I was 14 in 1966. In 1980, I stumbled over a dumpster behind 95 Herkimer Street in Albany’s ‘Pastures’ District. The house had been built by and was the home of Ruell Clapp of Clapp & Townsend Sarsaparilla fame.

The city had taken the roof off the house to repair it, and as part of the project, they shoveled the contents of the attic into the dumpster. It was a 3-story drop so some of the material was on the ground around the dumpster. That’s what I noticed first. After collecting every shred of material I ended up with over 1,000 documents from Ruell Clapp’s business’s including a huge pile of documents from Clapp & Townsend. I have kept them safe for all these years and recently started to clean the dirt and dust off and put them in archival sleeves.

There are letters from Dr. Dyott asking for 1,000 boxes of Sarsaparilla for his store in Philadelphia, Dr. Clark in Boston, all his suppliers of material for the medicine, an actual handwritten copy of the recipe and notations about how many boxes it takes to ship a batch and how many board feet it takes to make them, and lists of anyone who was selling the product anywhere in the world. Just about everything they did to run the business is in the papers.

There is some really important information in them that I have started to go through. I found 2 documents recently that I need help with and your readers might be just the ones to help. One is a contract for making 144,000 thousand bottles over a 6 month period from October 1848 to May 1849. Everything is there except the name of the glass company in New England. The other scrap of mouse chewed paper is from Wheeler, Wood and Co. For creates of glass shipped to Townsend in 1848. As there were many factories making glass for them it isn’t an easy task to sort out. I am sending you a scan of the originals and a typed page of the text as best I can read it. If this is of any interest to you let me know,

Don

I found 2 documents recently that I need help with and your readers might be just the ones to help.

Unknown New England Glass factory’s contract with Clapp & Townsend July 15, 1848

I agree to make for Clapp & Townsend and deliver at the Boston Rail Road Depot at Greenbush (NY) between the first of October next and May following. One thousand gross (of) Townsend Sarsaparilla Bottles to be sound, to be delivered in equal monthly proportions. Said bottles to be nine Dollars pr gross, cash. Five pr cent of the weight to be twenty six ounces. The culls to be a sample shown (?) at Factory in albany–Albany

July 15th 1848

Another mouse chewed scrap of paper reads:

Wheeler, Wood & Co.

(18)48

(month?) 31 Rec 31 Crates of Glass of (?) 95

13 “ 129 “ “ (?) 68

___________

150 9 59

14 67

18 125

5 32

29 165

22 110

17 (?)

Update from Brian Wolff

24 November 2013

Here’s some information regarding the Clapp & Townsend post:  f

For clarity… Clapp & Townsend were the manufacturers of Dr. Townsend’s Sarsaparilla.  representing S. P. Townsend and not Jacob Sarsaparilla (Old Dr. Townsend’s).

“The culls to be a sample shown (?) at Factory in albany–Albany  July 15th 1848”

This MAY indicate the Albany Glass Works as the maker. The date is correct for this works. I can’t substantiate this based on the information given however.

To confuse things, Wheeler, Wood & Co. were NYC purveyors of stationary and paper goods. Advertisements below.