Hello everyone! My name is Evan Albaugh. As one of two assistants working for Professor Ng on cataloging the Evanston Chinatown artifacts, I am excited to share some of our discoveries with you all! Because I am deeply interested in all things related to historic glass, I thought it would be a good idea to feature a rare find for us in the lab – a complete glass bottle!
We found this glass catsup or ketchup bottle with the cork still intact while sorting through artifacts recovered during the 1998 excavations of Evanston. Featuring a crude applied lip and the embossing “STAR/WORKS /CINAO” on the base in a circle, we knew that this bottle was going to be identifiable beyond most of our glass artifacts. After some research, we have determined that the embossing refers to the Star Preserve Works, a food company that was based in Cincinnati, Ohio. The bottle has a distinctive shape, but it fits with fancy sauce bottle styles that usually date from the 1870s and 1880s. The Star Preserve Works also made food jars such as this Squat Quart Blue Green Wax Sealer Jar which was similar to a mason jar.
This link takes you to a version of ketchup that we have, but with the front label still partially intact: https://www.worthpoint.com/worthopedia/1869-original-labeld-catsup-bottle-3771798460
The bottle in our assemblage probably dates to the 1870s, meaning it was likely discarded around the same time as the founding of the Evanston Chinatown. Most of our glass artifacts date from around the turn of the 20th century, making this bottle some of the oldest glass to be recovered from the excavations.
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