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COL. GEORGE G. GREEN: WOODBURY GLASS WORKS: FRUIT JARS Col. George G. Green started a patent medicine business around 1872. He purchased his father's small company which was located on Cooper and Green Street in Woodbury, New Jersey. His laboratory workers produced Greens August Flowers and Buschee's German Syrup which sold for seventy five cents a bottle. For more about his patent medicine business refer to Article 377: L.M. GREEN: DR. A. BOSCHEE'S GERMAN SYRUP. One of Green's embossed bottles was called Ague Conqueror / G. G. Green Prop / Woodbury, N.J. In 1882 Green started the Woodbury Glass Works. Green decided it would be more profitable producing his own bottles for his patent medicine business.  By 1884 the Woodbury Glass Works started producing the Woodbury fruit jars. The company had a patent for their closure which was a glass lid with a vent hole and a metal screw strap clamp and a mini screw cap for the vent hole. Their first patent date were Nov. 25 84 and Mar 3 85 The company made at least six different variant of jar and had several different sizes. Below are two different variants of their quart jars.   .The company used the trade mark of W. G. W. from 1882-1900. After 1900 item may not have been marked. We know the company was in business up to 1909. Below is a photo of children working at the glass works.  Photo by Lewis Wickes Hine Nov. 1909. Below is from www.wipipedia.com George Gill Green was born in Clarksboro, East Greenwich Township, New Jersey, to Mary Ann (1820-1844) and Lewis M. Green (1818-1894). George Green's mother was from Pennsylvania, and his father worked as a butcher. 1860s -Green attended the University of Pennsylvania medical school for two years, but left in 1864 before he graduated. He enlisted in the 142nd Illinois Volunteer Infantry Regiment (active 1864-1865) during the American Civil War (1861-1865). In 1867 he started a wholesale drug business in Baltimore, Maryland but the factory was destroyed by a fire. He moved to Ohio, married Angie Brown, and they had their first child there. 1870s- Green bought the rights to "Green's August Flower" and "Dr. Boschee's German Syrup" from his father, Lewis M. Green (1818-1894), who sold the elixir under the name "L.M. Green". George created a marketing campaign involving mass mailings of free samples, and the distribution of thousands of his almanacs. Both elixirs were mostly laudanum. He became a millionaire and in 1880 he built Woodbury's Opera House. The family moved to Woodbury, New Jersey on November 23, Thanksgiving Day in 1872. 1880s-The Greens had a son, George Gill Green II (1883-1971), who was born on January 17, 1883 and died in January 1971. 1890s- In 1893 Green acquired an uncompleted hotel in Pasadena, California, and in 1894 completed and opened it as Hotel Green in Southern California. Green completed a summer home, "Kil Kare Castle," in 1895 at Lake Hopatcong in New Jersey. In 1898 Green built an annex west of Hotel Green, the "Central Annex" building or "Castle Green" on the block across Raymond Avenue. "Castle Green" is listed on the National Register of Historic Places in Pasadena, the California State Historic Landmark Register, and the City of Pasadena Register of City Treasures. 1900s- In 1903 Green added a third annex to the Hotel Green, known as the "Wooster Block." His patent medicine business declined after the passage of the Pure Food and Drug Act in 1906, and by 1916 his company's products were discontinued. George Gill Green died on February 26, 1925 in Woodbury, New Jersey. References: Gloucester County Historical Soc. Red Book 10 by Douglas M. Leybourne Jr. American Antique Medicines Bottle by M. Knapp. www.wipipedia.com Frank & Frank Jr. (Wicker) Fruit Jar Collection.  |
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