Fascinating Find While Fishing Shared on Facebook
A person recently posted on a St. Charles community Facebook page that she had discovered an old glass bottle while out fishing, pulling it from the mud. Another member of the page responded with research that shed light on the history of the bottle and its origin.
Here's the response:
Your bottle comes from Major James Spence Van
Patten, one of the most prominent early citizens of St. Charles, Illinois. Born
in 1823 in Preble, New York, Van Patten moved west and settled in St. Charles
in 1854, where he purchased Elisha Freeman’s established drug business. From
that point forward, his pharmacy on West Main Street became a cornerstone of
the community. He is listed in city directories throughout the mid-to-late 19th
century as “J. S. Van Patten & Co., druggists,” selling medicines,
groceries, paints, oils, and other goods. The embossed bottle you found would
have been filled with one of his compounded remedies or products, a reminder of
the era when pharmacists prepared much of their own stock and advertised
directly through their glassware.
Beyond his work as a druggist, Van Patten led a notable public life. During the
Civil War he served with the 8th Illinois Cavalry, eventually being promoted to
captain and breveted as a major for his service as an assistant quartermaster. After
returning home, he became cashier of the Kane County National Bank in 1872 and
later was appointed Postmaster of St. Charles in 1894. His long career made him
both a businessman and a civic leader in the growing town. Bottles like
yours—cork-top, hand-blown glass, likely dating from the late 1800s into the
early 1900s—not only carried medicine but also bore his name as a lasting piece
of local advertising. Today, it stands as a tangible link to St. Charles’s
19th-century history and to the legacy of one of its most influential citizens.
