Time in a Bottle - Stuff Out of the Archive

Vernon Peeples stored a significant part of his collection in a large study lined with book cases. The tops of those cases were adorned with a curious bottle collection that Mr. Peeples would frequently talk about when we visited.  The bottles, he said, he had found along Charlotte Harbor and collected from the time he was a young boy in the 1930s. Examining the bottle collection more closely as we unpack the boxes containing over 100 of them reveals glass  pointers to the history of the early Florida frontier.

The bottle pictured above was one of many remedies hawked in the 1800s to cure the various ills that plaqued people of the day.  Bitters became very popular in the South during the Civil War when Union soldiers were told the concoction would protect them from the maladies in the swamps and bayous.  Simon Herrmann was the maker of the Old Hickory Celebebrated Stomach Bitters.  He was born about 1832 in Germany and arrived in Louisiana in 1863.   He came to New Orleans and entered the staple dry goods, boots and shoe business under the business name Herrmann, Levy & Company.  Around 1884 or 1885, is when the first Old Hickory Celebrated Stomach Bitters was made based on a patent on 12 February 1885.  It's probable that early settlers many of whom were former Union soldiers were frequent imbibers of Old Hictory which had a very high alcohol content.

Prickly Ash Poke Root Potassium PPP was manufactured by one of largest druggists of the late 19th century headquartered in Savannah.  Since it was purported to cure just about everything from malaria to rheumatism, syphllis and menstrual problems, it is likely to have been widely available in Punta Gorda through the turn of the century.