If you have been paying attention, we have met Ben, Mary’s Husband, His full name is Benjamin Latshaw Fahnestock, born Dec 16, 1810 and died Jan 3, 1888. We only meet him as Mary’s husband and the one ” Benjamin will enclose 30 dollars …” in letter 2.
Growing up, I certainly heard the words “Patent Medicines”, I think on westerns! I highly recommend reading https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patent_medicine I’ll paraphrase it here. By the late 17th Century, people wanting to sell medical elixirs might find a royal who would issue letters patent. The elixirs were rarely patented since chemical patents did not come into use until 1925 and the last thing the seller wanted to do was disclose the contents of the elixirs.
Benjamin had a cousin, Benjamin Augenbaugh Fahnestock (1799-1863) who lived in Pittsburgh.
A lot of the material I am presenting here is from a paper: The Fahnestock Companies by Bill Lockhart, Beau Schriever, Bill Lindsey, and Carol Serr with contributions by Jay Hawkins and David Whitten. https://sha.org/bottle/pdffiles/Fahnestock.pdf
The entry in the Fahnestock genealogy by Pitnam assigns Benjamin Augenbaugh Fahnestock the number 98 and says he graduated from Dickinson College and studied medicine under Dr. Luther at Harrisburg. He practiced first at Chambersburg, Pa., and in 1829 went to Pittsburgh. There he established a wholesale drug business, accumulating a huge fortune. The firm was dissolved in 1857. He owned a beautiful country seat at Oakland, Pa., and was especially devoted to botany, horticulture and improving poultry and live stock. He was a Ruling Elder of the 3rd Presbyterian Church in Pittsburgh. In later life he removed to Philadelphia where he was Elder of the Arch Street Presbyterian Church. He traveled extensively in Europe and the Holy Land.
The library of Congress has a great image from his best selling drug bottle:
But, this is supposed to be a story about another Ben, Benjamin Latshaw Fahnestock, His number in the Pitman genealogy is 105 and his obituary notice in the Paint Oil and Drug Review Vol 6 No 2 of 1888 reads:
From the paper “The Fahnestock Companies” referenced above:
B.L. Fahnestock left the firm to form B.L. Fahnestock & Co. – a wholesale drug firm in competition with his former employer – in 1857. At that point, he also opened the Fahenstock White Lead Co. – again in competition
(Everts 1876:117). After the separation, B.L. Fahnestock continued the popular Fahnstock’s Vermifuge, although he seems to have otherwise adopted different products from his former company. Upon the death of B.A. Fahnestock in 1863, George (His Son) operated the company as B.A. Fahnestock’s Son & Co. until his death in 1868, warning customers in the Terre Haute Weekly Express (9/9/1868) to make sure that the initials “B.A.” appeared on the bottles of
Fahnestock’s Vermifuge – an obvious stab at the new B.L. Fahnestock product.
So, you have BL breaking from BA’s company in 1857 and setting up his own companies to make White Lead paint, drugs and he even got into glass bottles to put the drugs in! I wonder what it was about the manufacturer of White Lead paint that caused the two men to connect it with a drug business?
BL has a great new label:
Here is a newspaper ad for the products:
I wish I had better pictures of the actual Vermifuge bottles. Here are two from the paper “The Fahnestock Companies” referenced above and they even seem to have stolen the image from ebay!
I hope I can see the letters B L on the upper image. And then here is a real find, a box full of bottles!
There is also a wonderful entry from A History of the Pittsburgh College of Pharmacy 1878-1958, https://www.pharmacy.pitt.edu/historybook/Part1~1.html
The first officially recorded meeting was held on July 15, 1878. The opening paragraph of the minutes reads as follows:
Pittsburgh July 15, 1878
At a meeting of the Druggists of Pittsburgh and vicinity held in the Western University room #2 James B. Cherry in the chair the following business was transacted. The committee appointed at a previous meeting to report on a permanent organization for the proposed College of Pharmacy reported the following list of Officers and Trustees which was adopted.
President: George A. Kelly
Vice-President: Dr. Levi H. Harris
Recording Secretary: James B. Cherry
Corresponding Secretary: Joseph Kimmel
Treasurer: Dr. Samuel S. Holland
Curator: Perry M. Gleim
Board of Trustees
James Kerr, Jr. G.Eisenbeis
James B. Cherry Louis Rott (replaced by B. L. Fahnstock)
Fred H. Eggers
A. C. Robertson Joseph Henderson
Wm. H. Brill Louis Emanuel
Charles Schwarm D. C. Thompson
Henry Schmidt B. J. Stenger
Fred G. Seitz John T. McKennan
J. B. Hill P. Walters
Mr. B. L. Fahnestock became chairman of the Board of Trustees, nominated successor to Mr. Kelly Aug. 26; took chair at September 2, 1878, meeting.
One of Mr. Kelly’s close associates, Mr. B. L. Fahnestock, owned one of the largest wholesale drug houses in America. It is curious to note, in a study of these two men, that, in the early days of the drug trade, the parent house was established in Pittsburgh, and there were branches in New York and Philadelphia. This was primarily because Pittsburgh was then near the frontier, and many gatherers of medicinal drugs and herbs brought their stock there for distribution.
I’m not so sure the above author’s idea about Pittsburgh’s being on the frontier was the impetus for quack medicine production.
A couple last loose ends. How were BA and BL related? Very strange that author after author did not seem to have access to the Fahnestock genealogy. BA and BL had the same grandfather, BENJAMIN FAHNESTOCK 1747-1820 who is [7] in the Pitman genealogy. Remember the story of BL coming back from Illinois parentless? Pitman does not corroborate that. He says at least that BL’s father Henrey [40] 1778 – 1829 is buried in Penna. Other ancestry.com entries confirm that he died in Illinois.
Remember way back when we were tracking Mary Fahnestock in the census? Her husband, BL, listed his occupation as druggist and now we see why. Another loose end is BL’s and Mary’s (remember she was not only married to a Fahnestock but was a Fahnestock) relation to Sarah and even my relation to Sarah of the letters. Sarah was married to Levi who was Mary’s brother. Sarah had a daughter Ada who is my great grandmother. If you want to go back and see how Sarah and BL are related, it is a lot of generations, maybe 3 or 4.
I will show one small object of connection. Ada collected cards, that visitors dropped off, and invitations. Here is an invitation she saved from BL’s 25th wedding anniversary to Mary.
Just ask if you would like to see more though we have very limited material on BL. I have one last fun article that I ran across in this research. Take a look: http://tompears.com/wp/fahnestock-look-out-for-him/