Posted 2 years ago
Paul.in.NJ
(1 item)
My historical society has been excavating bottles & other relics from a midden trash deposit dating to the late 1800s. This thin, oval copper tag was unearthed yesterday badly oxidized. Happily, I was able to successfully clean it.
It reads:
A.L. Hatch & Cos
Pat'd May 28 1861
Reissued March 5 1872
594 Greenwich. St. N.Y.
There is almost no information available online about this company. An 1883 New York City business directory notes that Almon L. Hatch made milk cans. That's it! I have been rather unsuccessful in searching the US Patent Office online records as well. I'm guessing this tag once graced one of the badly-degraded 10-gallon milk cans we have unearthed.
Might anyone know anything about this obscure company?
Hatch & Co. started in the dairy supply business in 1843, and in 1909 it was incorporated into the Wisner Manufacturing Company (“Everything for Dairymen Always in Stock,” “Peerless Creamery Equipment”). Dairy was very big business on Greenwich St. during that time, with the Butter and Cheese Exchange of New York opening there in 1872 (later that grew into the New York Mercantile Exchange, today’s NYMEX).
Wow! Thank you. We'll be adding this tag to our midden finds collection for display at a local school, and it's great to have some context for it.
How big is it it? It reminds me of smashed pennies, could it have been made from a penny?
The tag is in fact copper. It measures 1 3/4" by 3" and is wafer-thin. There are no mounting holes, which kills my conjecture that it graced a milk can. Maybe the tag was glued to something made of wood, or leather(?), which has long since decomposed.
I think the reason it survived intact is that the crud layer was thicker than the tag!
From image searches of antique milk cans, it seems a lot of tags were welded on, so there are no perforations for mounting.
Yes, that sounds plausible. There was a lot of junk, including iron hoops, in the same vicinity. That might have been the remains of a milk can.
I discovered that US patent number 00032439 was issued on May 28, 1861 to Philip Teets of New York City for his "Improved Milk-Can." His connection with the A.L. Hatch company seems clear -- the address Mr. Teets lists his address is the same as on the tag: 394 Greenwich St in New York City. I surmise he was employed there, and as such his invention would become the property of his employer.
That seems like a correct assumption. Hatch was the assignee of Teets’ patent: https://patents.google.com/patent/USRE4781E/en