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Walls Have Ears, Bottles Have Mouths: Glassware from a Nineteenth Century Irish Homestead on the Wisconsin Frontier Robert V. VanderHeiden, Jr. and John D. Richards Department of Anthropology, College of Letters and Science Introduction The McHugh site (47WP294) was identified during WisDOT-related compliance studies and was determined eligible for listing on the National Register of Historic Places (NRHP). The site represents the homestead of Michael and Mary McHugh, Irish immigrants who moved to Waupaca County, Wisconsin in ca. 1850 after originally settling in Ohio. By the time the McHughs arrived in Wisconsin, the household comprised seven children born in Ohio including six boys and one girl. An additional four children would be born in Wisconsin including two more boys and two girls. Unfortunately, Michael McHugh died of unknown causes in 1856, only six years after arriving in Wisconsin. This left his widow Mary to single- handedly raise 11 children, including a one-year old, on a frontier subsistence farm. At the time of Michael’s death, the McHugh children that had been born in Ohio ranged in age from 18 to 14 while the Wisconsin born children ranged in age from seven to one and included a pair of five- year old twins. From 1856 through 1900 Mary McHugh is listed as owner of the 160 acres on which the McHugh site is located. For much of that time Mary ran the farm as a single parent with the help of children. Phase II and Phase III archaeological investigations identified a series of domestic habitation related features including a rare example of a dugout structure (Figure 1) as well as a small outbuilding (Figure 2). Dugouts are well-known from Minnesota and the Great Plains (Linebaugh 2003) but are rare in Wisconsin and the McHugh structure is the first such excavated example in Wisconsin. It is presumed that the dugout served as temporary shelter while the McHughs constructed a more substantial residence. Fill excavated from the dugout’s basin suggests that use as a residence was brief and may have been followed by adaptive re-use as a storage facility. However, for most of the second half of the 19 th Century the basin appears to have been used as a convenient trash dump. Excavations produced a rich artifact inventory including numerous glass bottles. The McHugh glass bottle assemblage provides an opportunity to: 1) historicize the site’s occupation; 2) illustrate how, despite the site’s remote location on the Wisconsin frontier, the McHugh site occupants were active participants in an extensive extra-regional economic network; and 3) illustrate how widespread ideas of health, sickness, and disease prevention are reflected in the site’s material culture. Methods and Data Set After sorting container glass from other glassware, bottles were sorted into functionally diagnostic categories following Sprague (1981) and SHA guidelines (Lindsey 2015). The glass bottle assemblage includes a total of 3185 items including 64 complete or mostly complete bottles, 1289 bottle fragments, and 1832 general container glass fragments. The assemblage includes a minimum of 150 bottles (Table 1). 1 8 3 0 1 8 3 5 1 8 4 0 1 8 4 5 1 8 5 0 1 8 5 5 1 8 6 0 1 8 6 5 1 8 7 0 1 8 7 5 1 8 8 0 1 8 8 5 1 8 9 0 1 8 9 5 1 9 0 0 1 9 0 5 1 9 1 0 1 9 1 5 1 9 2 0 1 9 2 5 1 9 3 0 - - - 1 9 6 0 Bottles from the McHugh site excavations include containers manufactured locally and as far away as Providence, Rhode Island and East St. Louis, Illinois (Figure 3). Contents also include locally sourced substances like soda and beer as well as exotic materials like the bark of the Chinchona tree, often termed calisaya when used in patent medicines to treat malarial fever. While some of the glass bottles used by the McHughs may have been brought with Michael and Mary on their westward trek, prior to the Civil War most would have been obtained from outlets in Oshkosh and Milwaukee, Wisconsin. On the Wisconsin frontier in the mid-to-late nineteenth century, cholera, measles, malaria, smallpox, diphtheria, and tuberculosis were major health hazards (Harstad 1960). To make matters worse, because of poor sanitation, shallow wells, and “general lack of knowledge concerning the most elemental facts of bacteriology, diseases of the digestive organs were very common in early Wisconsin” (Harstad 1960:259). Over one third of the McHugh bottle assemblage consists of patent medicine bottles, suggesting that the inhabitants of the site were using patent medicines to treat a wide range of maladies. The typically high alcohol content of some patent medicines led to many being consumed because of their qualities as intoxicants (Franzen 1995). However, it is also true that immigrant farmers on the Wisconsin frontier had limited access to physicians. Furthermore, many had deep feelings of mistrust as many early Wisconsin physicians were wont to blame almost every epidemic on newly arriving immigrants. Moreover, frontier physicians were often poorly trained (Harstad 1959) since Wisconsin was one of the last states to require medical licenses for physicians, a step taken by the state legislature in 1897 (Coombs (1990:44). Due to geographic isolation, cultural differences, or poverty, patent medicines would have been a very attractive alternative to treatment by Wisconsin’s frontier medical practitioners for rural families such as the McHughs. Bottles in the McHugh assemblage include remedies for stomach ailments like Hostetter’s Stomach Bitters and Ritz’s Juniper and Wild Lemon Bitters (Figure 5). Beer Liquor Medicine Shoe Polish Toiletries Soda/Mineral Water Unidentified Veterinary Champagne Waupaca Co., WI The McHughs also used the nationally popular “Dr. Pierce’s Favorite Prescription”, marketed as an aid for “weak women and their many female complaints” (Figure 6). The McHugh bottle assemblage also includes three examples of Dr. Russell’s Pepsin and Calisaya Bitters, a concoction touted as: ”A True & Infallible Remedy for DYSPEPSIA, INDIGESTION, GENERAL DEBILITY, LOSS OF APPETITE, CHRONIC DIARRHOEA, Intermittent and Bilious Fevers, Flatulent, Colic, Affections of the Liver, Kidneys, & Lungs. THE GREATEST BENEFACTOR AND REGENERATOR FOR ALL DERANGEMENTS OF THE SYSTEM” Today, malaria is most often associated with tropical climates and not the ‘frozen tundra’ of northeast Wisconsin. However, the disease was actually a very real threat to the success of mid-to-late 19 th century settlers and was widely feared because it made people too sick to work and often struck its victims down in late summer and autumn, when crops needed to be harvested. The cause of the disease was not well understood at the time (identification of the Anopheles mosquito as vector did not occur until 1879), and many settlers believed that “whenever new land was broken...the ague harried the people with most disastrous results” (Harstad 1959: 84). Medical professionals blamed ‘malarial vapors’ from decaying vegetation in the autumn and low water levels in swamps and streams that when inhaled would poison the blood. Malaria was not uncommon in the area of the McHugh site, according to a paper read before the Wisconsin State Medical Society in 1873, Dr. C. Linde of nearby Oshkosh suffered from a difficult case of malaria as a young man that “yielded to large doses of quinine” (Harstad 1959; Linde 1874: 106). Frontier treatments for malarial fever included bloodletting, cold water soaks, “blistering” and various “medicines” such as calomel, a highly toxic mercury based compound. Unfortunately, none of these therapies provided a cure or relief from symptoms. No cure exists for malaria, but regular doses of quinine, an extract from the bark of the Peruvian cinchona tree, is an effective treatment. Although quinine was known to be useful in treating malarial fever as early as the 1820s, two factors prevented the widespread use of the drug: poorly educated physicians who continued to use ineffective treatments and cost (cinchona bark sold for $6.00-$8.00 per ounce in 1856 or about $175.00 in 2016 dollars). The presence of at least three patent medicine bottles embossed with “Dr Russell Med. Co//Pepsin Calisaya Bitters” suggests that one or more of the McHughs may have contracted malaria. The Dr. Russell bottle dates to 1880- 1890, a period when malaria was no longer an epidemic but still present in the Waupaca area. However, the disease may have been contracted earlier during the 1850s, 1860s, or 1870s. Alternatively, the disease may have been contracted by one of the McHugh sons during their service in the American Civil War. Acknowledgements Archaeological work at the McHugh site and the analysis on which this poster is based was funded by FHWA and WisDOT. Thanks are due to Jennifer Picard and Alex Anthony for help with sorting, bottle identifications, and database magic. Descendants of Michael and Mary McHugh still live in the area and we are especially indebted to Millie McHugh for her generous sharing of McHugh family history as well as her wonderful red pepper jelly and other preserves. The Dr. Russell company was sold to the Augauer Bitters Company in 1890. The Augauer Company continued to produce the Dr. Russel’s bitters under the Augauer brand until forced out of business by Prohibition (the Augauer version contained 35% alcohol and was ruled a liquor by the Internal Revenue Dept. in 1907). However, both Dr. Pierce’s and the Augauer version were marketed as including “calisaya” a name for the bark of the Peruvian tree from which quinine can be extracted (Duran-Reynals 1946) (Figure 7). Quinine remains the only effective treatment for malarial fever. Chronology The McHugh site artifact assemblage includes material culture that spans the period ca. 1780-1920 (Drew and Richards 2012) but the glass bottle assemblage suggests a median date range of 1878-1920 (Figure 4). This range likely reflects a time when the abandoned structure basin was used as a trash dump. Type Count (MNI) Percentage beer 36 24% liquor 21 14% medicinal/druggist 51 34% other toiletry (non-perfume) 1 1% perfume 1 1% shoe polish 1 1% soda/mineral water 4 3% unidentified 33 22% veterinary 1 1% wine/champagne 1 1% TOTAL 150 100% Table 1: McHugh Site Glass Bottle Assemblage Figure 1: South profile of the McHugh site dugout basin (Feature 1). Figure 2: Plan of storage shed foundation (Feature 6) at the the McHugh site. a. b. c. d. e. Figure 4: McHugh site glass bottle date ranges and selected examples of functional categories: a., flask-shaped liquor bottle; b., “S.M. Bixby“ shoe polish bottle; c., “W. Hamm” beer bottle; d., “Davis Vegetable Painkiller” medicine bottle; e., "Charles Windels Appleton Wis” soda/mineral water bottle. Figure 3: McHugh site location in midwest United States and glass bottle source locations. Figure 5: Bitters bottles in the McHugh Site glass bottle assemblage: a., advertisement for “Hostetter’s Stomach Bitters”; b. “Ritz’s Juniper and Wild Lemon Bitters” bottle. Millie McHugh and the next generation of McHughs onsite at WP294 (UWM-ARL photo). a. b. c. a. b. a. b. Figure 7: a., harvested bark of the chinchona tree (Wikipedia Commons); b., “Dr. Russell’s Pepsin and Calisaya Bitters” bottle showing embossed labelling. For Further Information The McHugh site Ph II investigations are reported in: Drew, B. L. and J. D. Richards 2012Phase II Archaeological Investigation of The McHugh Site (47WP294), A Nineteenth Century Irish Farmstead in Waupaca County, Wisconsin. University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Archaeological Research Laboratory Reports of Investigations No. 188. Phase III reporting is in progress. For a copy of this poster and a list of references cited, or a PDF of the McHugh site report, and earlier posters, scan the QRC symbol or point your browser to: http://archaeolab.anthro.uwm.edu/McHugh_Site/ Photo from “The Irish in Northern Wisconsin” by Justille McDonald, Wisconsin Magazine of History, Volume 40 (No. 2). Figure 6: “Dr. Pierce’s Favorite Prescription”: a., embossed medicine bottle from McHugh site; b., outdoor advertisement; c., print advertisement.
