Found Vintage Story: a J.F. Howard Bottle

This found vintage story starts with an embossed bottle: J.F. Howard, Haverhill, MA. It’s a nice bottle with some lovely bubbles and the slightest whisper of purple. Probably 1920s or so. Still needs a little more cleaning to remove rust stains. (We wrote about cleaning bottles here.)

Heaven knows, vintage anything that comes with a solid keyword like an embossed company name to search on is a gift from the heavens. Many are the hours spent down rabbit holes trying to find the maker and pattern of a pretty etched wine glass or exquisite piece of EAPG. And don’t get me started on art with signatures that have only one or two legible letters.

First search result tells me that J.F. Howard made sauces and salad dressings. And they still do. Here’s the early history of both Mr. Howard and the company from the company’s website:

“This is a story of ambition, imagination, adventure, and of course, success or there would be no story.  Many years ago, an article in the Haverhill Evening Gazette reported: “J. F. Howard has assumed a position in the condiment manufacturing business rivaling that which Henry Ford occupies in the automobile industry.”   As with many highly successful people John Howard was an intriguing man.

The Howard story begins with the birth of its founder, John F. Howard, in 1854 in Stowe, Maine.  His parents moved to New Hampshire when he was a year old where he lived until 1868.  At the age of 14 he left home to make his fortune in the west.

A few years later, minus the fortune, he returned to the East Coast, and settled in the thriving shoe town of Haverhill, Massachusetts.  He tried various ventures in the next few years, and in the early 1890s became the proprietor of two hotels, one in Haverhill, and the other in the town of Bradford across the river.  He married, and with his wife Margaret, working in the barn behind their house in Bradford, began what was to become Howard Foods.  Inspired by the success of his hotel restaurants, and after much experimentation in their kitchen at home, he and his wife devised recipes which were so good that in a short time they were inundated with orders from all over the world. In 1900 the Howard products were awarded the Grand Prix at the International Exhibition in Paris for purity and quality.

John Howard was finally making the fortune he’d been seeking since leaving home and boyhood in 1868.

In December of 1924 John Howard sold the business to Arthur D. Dickson, and the firm incorporated.”

All of which seems to be a fine story of hard work and persistence paying off. An American dream realized. Until you read this article about the family from June 14, 1926 edition of The New York Times.

I don’t know about you, but I did not see THIS story coming. Strangely, these details are omitted from the company history. To recap: successful salad dressing company, Mexican divorce, two avenging sons, a fist fight and arrests, a wife in a sanitarium, a live tiger and silent movie star, Ora Carew. Holy cow. This bottle is way more than a nice piece of 1920s Massachusetts culinary and manufacturing history. It’s a Lifetime movie of the week, He Tossed Me Aside Like A Salad: The Marguerite Howard Story with a cameo by…