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Bail Top Milk Bottles
The system of sealing milk bottles with a milk cap pressed into the bottle's cap seat was not patented until September 17, 1889 by Harvey and Samuel Barnhart of Potsdam, New York. Prior to this and even to some degree after, the bail style top was a common way to seal milk bottles. We have seen advertisements as late as 1912 offering tin top milk bottles. Caps on bail top milk bottles could be glass or tin and a wire bail was used to tighten the cap against the lip of the milk bottle. Often some type of packing material was used to make a seal between the bail top and the glass lip of the milk bottle. Click here to go to the page that discusses the 1889 patent for the cap seat and milk cap.
Many of these bail style closures are variations of a patent granted to Charles DeQuillfeldt on January 5, 1875 (and reissued on June 5, 1877). This original patent covered a bail style bottle stopper for use on small mouthed bottles typical of beer and soda bottles however it was adapted by various individuals for use on larger mouthed milk bottles as well as fruit jars. These are often referred to as "Lightning" closures. Lightning was a trademark used by Henry Putnam made famous by his Lightning fruit jars. Trademark "Lightning" is also found on milk bottle tin tops. It is often found with a January 31, 1888 patent date. This patent was issued to Frederick Morhous of Bennington, Vermont for a tin bail style milk bottle closure. This patent was assigned to Henry Putnam. 
These are two early bail style milk bottles. The bottle on the left has a dome style tin cap. The lid is made of two pieces of tin joined at the edges and having a hollow center. The bottom piece of tin has a flange to fit in the mouth of the bottle and the upper piece of tin is domed. As the bail is pushed up the dome, the lid is pushed down into the mouth of the bottle. The bail mechanism is held on to the bottle neck by a twisted wire. This cap has a patent date of Sept 23, 1884. This patent was issued to Abram V. Whiteman of New York, New York. Abram Whiteman patented a similar domed lid in 1883. In that patent however the wire bail was held on to the bottle by fitting into dimples in the glass on either side of the bottle. The bottle above is embossed THIS BOTTLE TO BE WASHED AND RETURNED NOT TO BE BOUGHT OR SOLD. It is a quart bottle.
The bottle on the right has a bail top with a glass lid. The lid is loose when the bail is tightened to allow for a packing ring to seal the bottle and cushion the glass on glass. The underside of the glass lid is embossed with a patent date of Jan. 5, 1875, revised June 5, 1877. This patent and revision was issued to Charles DeQuillfeldt of New York, New York for an improvement in bottle stoppers. This was the original patent for the Lightning style bottle closures found on many beer bottles. The closure found on this milk bottle was actually a variation patented by Louis P. Whiteman of New York, New York on March 23, 1880. This bottle possibly was made before the patent was granted since it references the DeQuillfeldt patent rather than the Whiteman patent. We have seen advertisements for this milk bottle that date from August of 1879, before the patent was granted. Note that this milk bottle predates the Thatcher milk bottle discussed below even though the Thatcher bottle is often credited as being the first milk bottle. Advertisements for these milk bottles claimed that the milk would only come in contact with glass. The base of the bottle is embossed WHITEMAN and the back is embossed THIS BOTTLE TO BE WASHED AND RETURNED. This is a pint bottle but the advertisements also mentioned quarts and half pints.
Whiteman advertisements credited the Echo Farm Company as being the first to use the Whiteman milk jars. A 1917 reference stated that Echo Farm Dairy started milk delivery to New York City using glass bottles in late 1879 or early 1880. An article in a popular agriculture magazine in August of 1879 pictured this milk bottle as being used by Echo Farm and said that they had 7000 bottles in use at that time. In addition they used safety boxes which were also sold by the Warren Glass Works. These boxes were lined with granulated cork packing paper to prevent breakage to the bottles and held one or two dozen bottles. This was probably a wise decision by Warren Glass Works to market these boxes along with the milk bottles since one of the biggest fears of glass bottles was breakage. Echo Farm Company was formed by Frederick Ratchford Starr in Litchfield, Connecticut to bottle milk to sell in Brooklyn, New York. Although Starr bought milk from many dairies in the area he also had a dairy herd of his own known as Echo Farm Dairy.
Early Whiteman's milk bottles were made by the Warren Glass Works Company. Louis, Warren and Abram Whiteman, all brothers, started Warren Glass Works, reportedly in 1880. However the company advertised in 1879 and the bottles were reported to be used in 1879 also. The company used three different New York City addresses in their advertisements (39 Warren Street, 44 College Place and later 72 Murray Street) however the bottles were not made in New York. These addresses were for their sales office. We have only seen the 72 Murray Street address embossed on milk bottles. The original glass factory was located in Cumberland, Maryland. However by 1885 advertisements referred to the company as A. V. Whiteman and by 1889 listed the factory as being in Uniontown, Pennsylvania. Soon after the sales address was listed as 144 Chambers Street in New York City. That address is also found embossed on milk bottles. At some point Whiteman must have utilized other glass factories to make his milk bottles for him as we have seen Whiteman milk bottles with the T. MFG. Co. mark of the Thatcher Manufacturing Company on the base along with the 144 Chambers St. address.
The two quart bottles pictured above are Standard Cream Line milk bottles. They were patented by A.V. Whiteman on Feb. 18, 1890. These bottles have two lines embossed, one on the shoulder and one on the neck of the bottle. The top line was labeled 5% and the lower line 12 1/2%. The patent papers actually referred to three lines to indicate three milk qualities and we have seen a bottle with an additional third line labeled 15%. However many bottles only have the two lines. In fact on one of these bottles the 5% line is not labeled. The idea was that if the bottle was allowed to set with milk in it the cream would rise and the amount of cream could be judged by comparing it to the lines. This would allow consumers to quickly judge the cream content of the milk. However A. V. Whiteman's advertisements of the period were directed more at detecting inferior milk rather than high quality milk. His ads for the Cream Line milk bottles stated, "Impure milk detected at a glance" and "Downs fraudulent competition." Dishonest dairymen were known to skim some of the cream out of the whole milk before selling it or add water to the milk, diluting the cream and the milk. It seems that Whiteman's Cream Line milk bottle was directed at giving consumers and honest dairymen a solution to this problem.
Now days the freezing point of milk is used to detect if water has been added. Any addition of water to dilute the milk will change the temperature at which the milk will freeze. Creameries and the state can test the freezing point to determine if water has been added.
The Standard Cream Line bottle on the left has an enameled tin bail top. It is made of two pieces of tin joined at the edges very similar to the domed lid patented in 1884 that was discussed above. The bottom piece of tin has a flange to fit in the mouth of the bottle similar to the domed lid however the top piece of tin is flat with an arch in the center to accept a bail wire rather than being domed. The bail wire pushed down on the lid when a lever wire was pushed against the neck of the bottle. This lid does not have a patent date however we believe that it was described in a patent issued to A. V. Whiteman on April 3, 1883. This milk bottle is base embossed WHITEMAN B 144 CHAMBERS ST. 2 N.Y.
The Standard Cream Line bottle on the right has a tin bail top with a patent date of October 25, 1892 on the tin lid. This patent was issued to Benjamin Sanborn and was assigned to A. V. Whiteman who patented the bottle. This tin top is different than the tin top commonly found on older milk bottles. The lid is a single piece of tin with a tube soldered to the lid to accept the bail wire. This tube extends almost the full length of the lid unlike the common tin top in which the bail wire is connected to the lid only in the center by a small cap soldered to the lid. In his patent Sanborn stated that this allowed the extremities of the tube to bear directly upon that portion of the stopper which fits over the edge of the bottle thereby more securely holding the stopper in place. We have also seen this patented tin top used on milk bottles made by Fidelity Glass Company. This is interesting because Fidelity Glass Company was in Brackenridge, Pennsylvania not far from the glass factory of A. V. Whiteman in Uniontown, Pennsylvania. This milk bottle is embossed THIS BOTTLE TO BE WASHED AND RETURNED NOT TO BE BOUGHT OR SOLD on the back. It is embossed on the base: WHITEMAN MAKER 144 CHAMBERS NEW YORK.
A. V. Whiteman was granted or assigned many patents for milk bottle tin tops. He often used an April 17, 1888 patent date in some of his advertisements. This was a patent granted to George Carll of Brooklyn, New York for a tin top bottle cover and was assigned to A. V. Whiteman. We have never seen this bottle cover even though it was advertised by A. V. Whiteman. A. V. Whiteman was granted a patent for a tin top bottle cover as late as 1900 a full eleven years after the introduction of the cap seat and using paper milk caps to seal milk bottles.
There also was a more modern Kremeline milk bottle (picture). Note the difference in the spelling. This bottle was pyroglazed and had a line indicating a 4% cream line. The bottle was also graduated in cups on one side and ounces on the other. The bottle was marketed by Kremeline, Inc. and was marked Pat. Pending however we have never been able to locate this patent. These milk bottles seem to be found in the state of Washington and date to the late 1930's. Notice that on the Whiteman Cream Line milk bottle the cream line was at 5, 12 1/2 and 15 percent where as on the more modern Kremeline milk bottle the amount of cream had decreased to 4 percent.
Off page milk bottle:
Kremeline Inc., quart, location unknown, Liberty Glass Co., 1937 
Pictured above is a close up of the bail tops from the first four Whiteman milk bottles on this page. On the top left is the enameled tin bail top from a cream line milk bottle that was patented on April 3, 1883. On the top right is a tin bail top on another cream line milk bottle that carries an October 25, 1892 patent date. On the lower left is the glass bail top embossed with a patent date of Jan. 5, 1875 and revised June 5, 1877. In actuality this specific glass bail top was patented on March 23, 1880. On the lower right is the tin dome style top patented Sept. 23, 1884. 
The first two bottles pictured above were a famous early milk bottle. These were the Thatcher milk jar. Early milk deliveries were made in cans and milk was scooped into a container supplied by the customer. This obviously was not sanitary since the roads were dusty and the milkman was also using his hands to control a horse. The cream and skim milk would separate and some customers got more cream while others received more skim milk. Also as the milk can was emptied, the milk would start to slosh around and the cream would churn itself into balls of butter. It was this scenario that the Thatcher milk jar was aimed at eliminating.
The front of the bottle is embossed with a man milking a cow. Above it is embossed ABSOLUTELY PURE MILK and below THE MILK PROTECTOR. The back of these bottles, in a slug plate, are embossed TO BE USED ONLY AS DESIGNATED MILK & CREAM JAR. The base of one of these bottles is plain but the other is embossed THATCHER MFG. CO. POTSDAM, N. Y. Early variations of this milk jar will be embossed H. D. T. & Co., Potsdam, N. Y. in the slug plate on the rear of the jar. This bottle is found in pint and quart sizes. This milk bottle was sealed with a dome shaped glass lid with a gasket held in place by a wire bail (picture). This fastening device was patented by H. D. Thatcher and H. P. Barnhart on April 27, 1886. The jar itself was not covered by the patent. The original glass lid is embossed with the patent date. The wire clamping device was removable for cleaning and engaged in two dimples on either side of the bottle neck. The glass lids were loose however and often lost or dropped and broke. There were early variations of the wire clamping device that used a brass bead to engage the glass lid rather than the flat piece of metal shown in the patent papers. Milk jars with this fastener probably date prior to the 1886 patent.
This milk bottle has many modern reproductions. If the bottle has any of the following characteristics be suspicious of a reproduction:
1) Green, amber, pink or blue colored glass
2) A porcelain stopper, this bottle used a glass lid
3) Any reference to Crownford China Company
4) Any reference to Made in Italy
5) A 1965 date
6) A pouring spout molded into the bottle lip
7) A reference to Thatcher's Dairy Bottle Patent 1884, the glass lid on the original milk bottle
was patented in 1886, the bottle did not have a patent date
8) The embossing THE MILK PROTECTOR below the man milking the cow is missing
Around 1879 Hervey Thatcher, along with Harvey Barnhart started a company in Potsdam, New York. Thatcher at some point married Barnhart’s sister so they were in laws. Their first product was a butter color. Originally the company must have gone by the name of H. D. Thatcher & Company. Some of the earliest milk bottles were embossed with that name and literature from 1885 used that name. On August 7, 1883 Thatcher and Barnhart received a patent for a covered milk bucket. The bucket had a rubber or fabric sheath that covered the cow’s teat and was connected to the bucket by a tube. The cow’s teat was hand milked through the sheath and the milk passed into the bucket through the tube. In this way no hair, dirt or manure could fall in the milk nor could the milk touch the milker’s hands.
Soon after they started to sell a milk jar. They were not bottle makers however. They had Whitall, Tatum & Co. located in Millville, New Jersey make the bottles for them. A reference from 1917 reported that a Mr. Wilcox of Ogdensburg, New York was first to use these bottles to deliver milk. That reference placed the date as 1883 but it also said the jar was patented in 1883 and that was not true. Another reference placed the first use as 1886. H. D. Thatcher & Company did advertise milk bottles prior to the patent being issued in 1886. Thatcher’s marketing plan was to stress sanitation and he advertised his milk bucket and milk jar as an integrated system, referring to it as The Milk Protector. In fact if you look closely at the embossing on his milk jar you will see that the man is using their patented milk bucket to milk the cow. They also sold bottle fillers, bottle carrying racks and porch boxes. In 1886, Thatcher and Barnhart received the patent mentioned above for the glass closure and metal bail on their milk jar.
Soon after, in 1886 or 1887, Thatcher sold his share of the company's bottle business to Harvey Barnhart and his brother Samuel Barnhart. At some point the company name was changed to Thatcher Manufacturing Company. Possibly the name change coincided with Hervey Thatcher’s departure from the company in 1886 or 1887. The two Barnhart brothers continued to manage the company and in 1889 were granted the patent for the milk bottle cap seat and milk cap that eventually took over the industry. Harvey Barnhart was granted another patent on May 10, 1892 for another milk jar closing device, however this one did not see any success. The two brothers were also granted a pair of patents in 1896 for metal bail type bottle stoppers. Neither of these patents were successful, however it is interesting to note that the Barnharts were still working on bail type closures seven years after they introduced the milk bottle cap.
In 1900 Francis Baldwin, a lawyer from Elmira, New York, bought the company. He remained as president until 1927. One of the first changes was for the company to start manufacturing their own bottles. In 1904 Thatcher Manufacturing Company acquired a glass plant in Kane, Pennsylvania and also became the first milk bottle manufacturer to receive a license for the new Owens automatic bottle machine. This was only one more example where the company was a leader in the milk bottle industry. In 1908 they added a glass plant in Streator, Illinois followed by another plant located in Elmira, New York in 1912. By 1905 Thatcher advertisements showed the company headquarters had moved from Potsdam to Elmira, New York. Thatcher manufacturing was very aggressive in acquiring glass plants throughout the 1920’s and became one of the dominant forces in milk bottle manufacturing. Thatcher advertisements from 1923 listed additional plants in:
Lockport, New York
Dunkirk, New York
Clarksburg, West Virginia
Cedar Grove, West Virginia
Parkersburg, West Virginia
Mount Vernon, Ohio
Winchester, Indiana
Thatcher Manufacturing Company's mTc mark is found on many milk bottles.
The bottle on the far right is very similar to the Thatcher Milk Protector jar. In fact it was also made by the Whitall, Tatum & Company of Millville, New Jersey which also made the Thatcher milk jar. The Crystal milk jar is base embossed W.T. & CO. as well as having a stylized version of the initials on the front of the jar. Since Thatcher and Barnhart only patented the fastening device for their Milk Protector jar, the bottle itself was not protected by a patent. Whitall, Tatum & Company advertised that their Crystal milk jar was patented on September 11, 1888. This patent was issued to Charles Tatum and assigned to the company. The patent was for the bottle stopper holder. They also used a glass lid sealed with a paper ring between the bottle lip and the lid. The bail locked into two dimples in the glass just below the lip of the bottle just like the Thatcher bottle. The difference was that an arched metal clip was fitted into the glass lid and permanently attached to the bail by a ring. As the bail was pushed up the piece of arched metal on the glass lid, it put downward pressure on the lid.
Because of this design Whitall, Tatum & Company advertised that their lids were less apt to be lost since the whole assembly was joined together (unlike the Thatcher milk jar). If the bail was removed from the dimples in the glass then the top could be easily removed for cleaning (unlike the Warren milk jar). They also advertised that since their lid was glass no metal came in contact with the milk. They sold the Crystal milk jar in pint and quart sizes and advertised that they could be ordered with the dairies name blown in the side of the glass if ordered in lots of more than one gross. The milk jar pictured here has a blank, round slug plate on the back side that could have been embossed. These milk jars were listed in the Whitall, Tatum & Company catalogs in 1892 and 1896. This would have been after the milk cap seat was patented in 1889. One sees that even though the milk cap and cap seat later took over the milk bottle market, initially there was still much interest in bail type closures. The price in both years was 18 dollars per gross for pints and 20 dollars for quart jars. They sold the paper sealing rings for 25 cents per 1000. The 1902 catalog no longer listed the Crystal milk jar but did list conventional milk bottles with cap seats. 
The milk bottles pictured above were made by A. G. Smalley & Company of Boston, Massachusetts. These bottles were used to hold many products, one of them being milk. The patent for these bottles was granted to Albert G. Smalley of Boston, Massachusetts on April 5, 1898. These bottles have a unique metal handle held on to the bottle by a metal band around the neck and another around the center of the bottle. The glass bottle has an indentation in the glass to hold the metal band in the center of the bottle. These bottles have a tin bail top that is usually embossed A. G. SMALLEY & CO. FULL MEASURE. The bottles pictured above are a pint, quart and half gallon. A. G. Smalley bottles were also made in half pint and gallon sizes. Most A. G. Smalley bottles will have the patent date embossed on the base although a few will be base embossed "Patent App'd For". The patent date is also stamped into the metal handle.
The milk cap and cap seat was patented in 1889, prior to the patent for these milk bottles. Most Smalley bottles have a cap seat even though they are usually found with a tin, bail top. A. G. Smalley and Company advertised their bottles were available with tin tops, pulp caps or a combination, which was a tin top and a pulp cap on the same bottle. Some of these bottles will have Boston, Mass embossed on the base and later bottles will be embossed Boston & New York. A. G. Smalley & Company started in Boston and at some pointed also opened offices in New York. A 1910 invoice from A. G. Smalley & Company listed the price of these milk jars in the quart size with a tin top at 13 dollars for a gross. This meant the cost of a single bottle was a little over 9 cents. This seems very inexpensive but in the same year Sears, Roebuck and Company was selling quart milk bottles for $6.80 per gross.
One problem that was encountered in the manufacture of these bottles was that heat had to be applied to the glass bottle in order to solder the metal bands around the bottle. This resulted in damage to some bottles. A patent was granted to Henry Wright of Somerville, Massachusetts for a solution to this problem. The patent was dated June 6, 1899 and was for a bottle with a handle that was attached by a single wire that was twisted on rather than soldered. No heat needed to be applied to the bottle. The wire passed around the middle of the bottle, up through the sides of the handle and then wrapped around the bottle neck where it was twisted together. This wire also formed part of the mechanism for the bail top. Click here for a comparison of an A. G. Smalley quart bottle (left) and a Henry Wright quart bottle (right). We do not know of any business relationship between Smalley and Wright and assume they were competitors. The Wright bottles are not found near as often as the Smalley bottles. From the bottle users point of view the Smalley bottle would have appeared much more substantial with the metal band instead of one thin wire to hold the handle on.
A. G. Smalley and Company also advertised a Duffy Handle milk jar. This milk bottle also had a tin handle but it was smaller and only attached at the bottle neck (picture). They advertised it as costing only a little more than milk bottles with no handle. The Duffy handled milk bottle was priced a few cents less than the Smalley bottle with the larger handle. The name Duffy handle came from the name of the inventor. Thomas Duffy of Boston, Massachusetts was granted a patent for this bottle attachment on July 17, 1900. He assigned his patent to Florence Smalley.
Bottles left to right:
Pint base embossed: A. G. S. & CO. 4 PATENTED APRIL 5, 1898
Quart base embossed: A. G. S. & CO. 3 PATENTED APRIL 5, 1898
Half Gallon base embossed: A. G. SMALLEY & CO. PATENT APRIL 5, 1898 1 BOSTON MASS.
Off page bottles left to right:
Quart base embossed: A. G. S. & CO. 3 PATENTED APRIL 5, 1898
Quart, no embossing on bottle but handle stamped PAT. JUNE 6, 1899
Here is a bail style milk bottle that we have never seen before. It has a glass lid that is embossed LYON JAR PAT APR 10 1900. This patent was granted to Julian Lyon of Detroit, Michigan. The patent discusses the increase in the number of bottle made by machines and problems in sealing them do to imprecise manufacturing. His patent attempted to deal with these problems of warping and cracking that he termed "crizzled". Around 1900, semi-automatic bottle making machines would have been gaining in popularity. This bottle was made by machine and is very crude with straw marks, bubbles and poor glass distribution. The bottle has a ledge in the mouth that looks very much like a cap seat. It was designed for a gasket to seat on this ledge. The glass cap was designed with an angled surface that would press against this gasket. The bail is similar in design to the bail on tin top milk bottles but the glass lid is not attached to the bail. There is a grove in the glass lid that the bail fits into, very similar to bails on fruit jars (picture). This jar must not have been very popular but it is interesting that bail top milk bottles were still appearing over 10 years after the introduction of the cap seat and milk cap. |
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