Mineral water bottle

Date1780-1830

MediumStoneware

DimensionsOverall: 11 5/16 x 4 11/16 x 3 11/16in. (28.7 x 11.9 x 9.4cm)

Credit LineGift of Mr & Mrs Peter Hibbard

Object number1998-17

DescriptionBrown stoneware bottle marked "SELTERS" in a circular pattern and "HERZOGTHUM NASSAU" opposite the handle and marked "Num 162" below the handle. Bottle is cylindrical with straight sides tapering to a short neck with a narrow opening. There is a small, rounded handle to one side below the neck of the bottle.
Label TextBeginning in the eighteenth century, Westerwald potters produced vast quantities of mineral water bottles for shipping the newly fashionable therapeutic beverage. These vessels were one of the few forms made solely to contain a commodity rather than for a range of utilitarian uses. Mineral water bottles were present in significant numbers in the American colonies from the mid-eighteenth century onward. Mineral water bottles produced in the Westerwald can be divided into two categories. The earliest forms are ovoid in shape and have a basal ring at the foot and a squat, narrow neck with a single ring at the juncture of the strap handle. These vessels are gray and often feature an impressed mark or a cobalt painted letter, frequently a “P,” designating the spa source from which they were to be filled. A shard excavated from the Nelson-Galt Apothecary site in Williamsburg corresponds to an example from the Three Cranes Tavern (BOS-HA-41) in Charlestown, Massachusetts. Both of these circa 1760 bottles are impressed with a mark consisting of a cross flanked by the letters “C” and “T”. The insignia is associated with Niederselter near Trier, Germany, famous for its mineral water. Seltzer bottles from around 1760 bearing variants of this mark have been found at sites from Kilkenny, Ireland, to the Netherlands and Batavia.

The other major type of Rhenish mineral water bottle also originated in the second half of the eighteenth century and persisted largely unchanged into the late 1800s. Surprisingly, these slender cylindrical bottles are not gray but range in color from pale buff or tan to pronounced reddish brown. They were made in the Westerwald by specialist potters known as Krugbäcker, or pot bakers. Most specimens feature stamped numbers and marks, occasionally augmented with cobalt, once again indicating the specific well that provided the contents. Examples of these wares dating to the second half of the eighteenth century and later have been found at many American sites, including the home of George Gilmer, a Williamsburg apothecary, who probably prescribed mineral waters for medicinal purposes.
MarkingsStamped "SELTERS" in a circular pattern and "HERZOGTHUM NASSAU" opposite the handle and "Num 162" below the handle
ProvenanceAccording to Mr. Hibbard, he found this bottle in a woodchuck hole on the Stout farm in Monmouth County, New Jersey in about 1956. The site is 20 miles east of the Battle of Monmouth site, on the old stage route, just north of the original location of the Shark River Stage House. When Mr. Hibbard found the bottle, a portion of the handle was broken which he glued back on.