Edward Gunter

September 6

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , , , ,

What was advertised in a colonial American newspaper 250 years ago this week?

South-Carolina Gazette (September 3, 1772).

“KEYSER’s, Lockyer’s, Hooper’s, and Anderson’s PILLS … all warranted GENUINE, from their original Warehouses.”

Of the several entrepreneurs who advertised “DRUGS & MEDICINES” for sale at their shops in Charleston in September 1772, Edward Gunter provided the most complete catalog of his “large and complete ASSORTMENT.”  He listed several patent medicines “all warranted GENUINE, from their original Warehouses” as well as “Double distilled Rose, Lavender, Honey, and Hungary Waters” and “Cinamon, Citron, and Orange Cordial Waters.”  He also carried an array of supplies and equipment, including “labelled Ointment Pots,” “Glass, Marble, and Bell-Metal Mortars and Pestles,” “best London and common Lancets,” and “Pewter Glyster and Ivory Syringes.”

Gunter commenced his list with “KEYSER’s, Lockyer’s, Hooper’s, and Anderson’s PILLS,” leading with a cure for venereal disease that had recently been at the center of a public dispute between the printers of the South-Carolina Gazette and the South-Carolina Gazette and Country Journal.  Throughout the month of July, Charles Crouch and Powell, Hughes, and Company engaged in a feud that started over how best to market “Dr. KEYSER’S famous PILLS” and eventually descended into insinuations that the other printer sold counterfeit medicines.  Following the death of Edward Hughes at the end of July, Thomas Powell and Company asserted that they “received a Quantity of Dr. KEYSER’S GENUINE PILLS, from Mr. James Rivington, Bookseller, in New-York, who is the ONLY Person that is appointed (by the Proprietor) for vending them in America.”

Gunter did not address that altercation directly when he ran advertisements in both the South-Carolina Gazette and the South-Carolina Gazette and Country Journal in September.  Apothecaries and others who sold patent medicines often stated that they obtained their wares “from their original Warehouses,” as Gunter did in his advertisement, but in this instance the advertiser may have intended for that message to resonate with both readers and the printers who published his notice.  Given that Gunter specialized in “DRUGS & MEDICINES” of all sorts, compared to local printers who sold only a few kinds of patent medicines to supplement other revenue streams, he likely did not consider it necessary to make more pointed comments about the authenticity of Keyser’s Pills he imported.  Instead, he allowed his reputation and experience running an apothecary shop justify why prospective customers should acquire that particular remedy from him rather than either of the squabbling printers.

September 1

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , , , ,

What was advertised in a colonial American newspaper 250 years ago today?

South-Carolina Gazette and Country Journal (September 1, 1772).

“BOXES of MEDICINES fitted up as usual.”

As fall approached in 1772, Carne and Poinsett alerted readers of the South-Carolina Gazette and Country Journal that they imported and sold a “VERY LARGE AND GENERAL ASSORTMENT of DRUGS, CHYMICAL, GALENICAL, AND FAMILY MEDICINES.”  They competed with Thomas Stinson, who acquired his “FRESH SUPPLY of DRUGS, CHYMICAL and GALENICAL, With most Family Medicines now in Use” directly from “their ORIGINAL Warehouses,” and Edward Gunter, who stocked a “large and complete ASSORTMENT OF DRUGS and MEDICINES” imported via “the last Vessels from LONDON.”

In addition to carrying similar merchandise, each of these entrepreneurs offered an ancillary service for the convenience of their customers.  Carne and Poinsett promoted “BOXES of MEDICINES fitted up as usual.”  Their competitors gave more elaborate descriptions of this service.  Gunter declared that he supplied “BOXES of MEDICINES, with Directions, for Plantations and Ships Use, prepared in the best Manner.”  Similarly, Stinson explained that “BOXES of MEDICINES, with Directions for PLANTATIONS and SHIPS Use, are faithfully prepared” at his shop.

Providing these boxes kept Gunter, Stinson, and Carne and Poinsett competitive with each other, eliminating the possibility that prospective customers would turn to one who offered the convenience of such boxes medicines over one who did not.  Yet marketing this service to customers did not constitute the sole reason for assembling these eighteenth-century versions of first aid kits.  Doing so augmented sales beyond medicines that customers actually needed to medicines that they might need at some time in the future.  Entrepreneurs who ran apothecary shops used the combination of uncertainty and distance to their advantage, realizing that many prospective customers did not have easy access to medicines and needed to plan for various possibilities rather than acquire remedies only when need became apparent.  It mattered little to these entrepreneurs whether their customers ever used the medicines in the boxes they “fitted up as usual.”  They traded in the security offered by the convenience of having various medicines on hand even if the buyers never needed to administer some of them.