HutchBook.com

Welcome to HutchBook.com!

NOTE: Latest Project Status Reports update posted August 24, 2010

Improving your Hutchinson sales...

The illustrated MEREDOSIA / BOTTLING / WORKS. maverick Hutchinson was posted as GreedyBay 230515967984 yesterday and just been catalogued as a new Hutchinson Bottle Directory listing.  The details included in this listing greatly facilitated our cataloguing of the bottle (thanks, Jon!), but more importantly, should greatly increase the odds the bottle will sell and soon find a new home with a happy collector.  The sellers' listing approach is very similar to what we promote via the Hutchinson Bottle Sales Guide; consider:

Taking the time to provide details up front means less time spent responding to EMail inquiries from those perusing listings and, in my opinion, greatly increases the possibility of receiving bids.  Clearly this seller has earned their "Top-rated seller" designation, 100% positive feedback, and five-star Detailed Seller Rating.

Per Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meredosia,_Illinois):

Meredosia is a village in Morgan County, Illinois, United States.  The population was 1,041 at the 2000 census...Meredosia is the home of the Meredosia National Wildlife Refuge.  Meredosia is known as the catfishing capital of Illinois. Along with that, it is also home to the nuisance fish, Asian carps.  There have also been reports that these same fish are kept as pets in many of the local pools throughout the Meredosia area.  Meredosia is also the site of the most northerly verified catch of the Alligator gar, the most recent specimen verified by the Illinois Academy of Sciences was caught there in 1922.

The Illinois State Museum's web site (http://www.museum.state.il.us/index.html) provides considerable information about Meredosia, including:

In 1816 travelers to the area reported that a French priest by the name of Antoine D'Osia was living in a cabin near a Native American village just north of the present Meredosia township.  Settlers soon arrived; the town was surveyed in 1832, and named for the priest, adding the French word mere for lake.

According to the Meredosia Bicentennial book, Daniel and J. E. Waldo built the first general store in 1831.  A cholera epidemic decimated Morgan County in 1833.  In 1835 the Waldo brothers built a whiskey distillery and blacksmith forge. T he year 1837 marked the authorization for the first strip of railroad built in Illinois - the twelve miles between Meredosia and Morgan City.  The long-term purpose for this railway was for finding a faster and easier way for Illinois settlers to ship their fur pelts, crops, and goods to market in the east. By river, everything had to be shipped down the Illinois to the Mississippi River and into St. Louis.

Ground was broken in 1837 to build the Northern Cross Railroad.  A local sawmill provided the ties, while other materials, including the locomotive, were brought in pieces from New Orleans and New Jersey by packet boat up the Mississippi and Illinois Rivers.  The engine arrived with an engineer to assemble it and to teach a local man how to run and maintain it.  The line opened in 1838 and was followed in 1841 by a line from Springfield to Jacksonville.  The line was sold in 1848.  This lone Illinois line struggled because of lack of funds until more rail lines were completed, connecting Indiana to Springfield.

Commodities such as coonskins, beeswax, and honey were used instead of currency until the banks arrived in 1837.  Between 1838 and 1858 several sawmills were started and white pine was shipped in to construct the houses of the growing town.  A grist mill and a lumber yard were among the early businesses.  "Midway House", a tavern and seventy-five room hotel, was built by the owner of the stage line in the 1840s.  Grain became a major product for the town.  It was shipped on the river by dealers Keener and Pike, who owned the steamer Calhoun.  An elevator stored grain for shipping.  A wagon and farm implement manufacturer opened in 1849, along with a coffin-maker, a drug store, a boat store, a shoe shop, and a saloon.

Census data of 1860 show Meredosia had a population of 414 people settled in seventy-eight houses.  Occupations mentioned included two ferrymen, two boatmen, and two river engineers.  There were two locomotive engineers and two conductors.  No mention was made of fishermen.  There were also six blacksmiths, two hoteliers, one teacher, twelve carpenters, and five doctors.

With the discovery and harvesting of mussel beds in the 1890s came four button factories in Meredosia.  Mayes and Mullen's ran from 1912 to 1930. John Glick Edlen and Wilbur E. Boyd started another in 1927, which employed thirty-four residents and became "a source of great financial benefit to the community," according to the 1906 History of Morgan County.  After the mussel beds were depleted here and in other Midwest riverbeds and plastic buttons became cheaply available, Meredosia lost this industry and its financial benefits.  In 1948 the last button factory, Boyd's, closed.

Be sure to click on Project Status Reports for the latest HutchBook.com updates!

HutchBook.com Development

It is incredibly exciting to make available the accompanying material concerning the wonderful bottles that utilized Hutchinson's Patent Spring Stopper!  Since the Hutchinson Bottle Directory initiative's founding in 1976, over 1,000 people have contributed bottle data and related information that will benefit collectors, archaeologists, historians, and other interested parties.  Here are details documenting the project's historical development:

Given the enormity of the HutchBook.com project, it is being delivered in three phases:

Phase I: Extensive, factual documentation concerning soft drink industry history, the Hutchinson era, the term "soda pop," stopper patents, W. H. Hutchinson and Son, Hutchinson's lawsuits, the American bottling system, pre-Hutchinson Era bottling, Hutchinson's Patent Spring Stoppers, Hutchinson bottles, the Hutchinson bottling process, and much more;

Phase II: Hutchinson Bottle Directory listing 16,732 different bottles; and

Phase III: Illustrations accompanying each bottle listings.

Project Status Reports

Phase I: Hutchinson History

September 30, 2009: Phase I launched! 

Phase II: Bottle Directory

Note: HutchBook.com does not yet include public access to the Hutchinson Bottle Directory data base. 

Click this link to the Project Status Reports page for the latest update.  Please bookmark this page and visit regularly to track on-going project developments!

Phase III: Bottle Illustrations

We will start adding Hutchinson bottle illustrations after Phase II has been moved up to the Internet for public access.