Matt Johannes by Tim Wolter
The squat blob soda bottle embossed simply, M.J gave me quite a few fits years ago. When my brother and I dug it in the late 1980's there was simply not enough information available to draw definite conclusions on its identity.
Clearly it was an older bottle, notably old for the western part of Wisconsin. The A & D.H.C. glass works marking confirmed it, but was not a narrow enough time frame to help all that much.
Context helps, but unfortunately the privy we dug it out of was one of those puzzlers with a wide age range. There were 1890's patent medicines near the top, 1880's-ish fruit jar fragments farther down, and a broken Union Clasped Hands flask down in the lowest level where the soda was found.
I suppose I should be fair and mention that my specimen is a pile of fragments, but a nice intact specimen can be seen in the blob soda gallery of this site.
So, somewhere in the time frame of 1865 to the later 1870's based on context and glass works. Not a big help.
Our first assumption was that it was local to the Eau Claire area, as soda bottles do not travel as much as other types. This would seem to narrow the suspects to either Massolt & Johannes, or Mathias Johannes. The initials would of course fit either.
William Massolt and Matt Johannes appear to be the first soda bottlers in Eau Claire and environs. A newspaper ad from May, 1867 states:
"Pop! Pop! Massolt and Johonnas have their machine in good running order for the manufacture of pop beer, or mineral water. They have already put up about a thousand bottles, which are receiving a very rapid sale. This mineral water is a very pleasant summer drink, and will meet with ready sale at all the restaurants in town, and costing but a trifle when purchased by the box, private families will find it a delightful beverage to be kept in the cellar. Massolt and Johonnas are the only firm in the Chippewa Valley that manufactures this article of drink, and will undoubtedly receive extensive patronage from the neighboring towns."
Additional ads in the same year state that their products were for sale at "saloons, restaurants, groceries & c. supplied by wholesale at Milwaukee prices."
When you read enough old newspapers you sort of learn to decipher the language. In general short articles of this sort are run at the launch of an enterprise, and the mention that their products "will" receive extensive patronage is additional evidence that Massolt and Johannes started operations in the spring of 1867. Some sources do quote other dates, but I think this is pretty solid evidence.
A couple of side notes. The variable spelling of Johannes is typical of German diction of that era, and need not be considered typo errors. And, 1867 is significant in that it is also the year the Massolt left Eau Claire to start the first (?) pop bottling company in Minneapolis. Perhaps he retained some business connection with Johannes after relocating.
The soda business does not seem to get the degree of attention that other enterprises enjoyed in the 19th century. Railroads, lumber and flour mills, these were the economic super stars of the day.
But after going solo Matt Johannes seemed to do well. He had a gravitating soda with his own name on it in the 1870's, and a base only embossed transitional soda with MJ EC on it. As to the man himself the only clue I found was this:
In 1869 Mathias Johannes was also keeping a saloon. It seems like a good move for one in the rather seasonal business of bottling soda pop. A young man refused to pay for his drinks and fled the premises. Johannes took after him in hot pursuit and fired three shots at him! All missed, but the local constable was alerted and took the deadbeat into custody. As would not be the case today, our friend Matt just went back to his bar, where one assumes accounts receivable showed an immediate improvement.
Johannes died in 1903, his obituary expressing much sadness for the passage of a community pioneer. It adds only a little more real information, that he had been born in Prussia in 1838, that he came to Eau Claire in 1860, and that he had been the sole bottler in the area for about 15 years. In later years, say the early 1880's, he got out of the soda business and retired as a gentleman farmer and horse breeder.
As time has passed a few more of the M.J sodas have shown up. And information from around the state on similar bottles has become more available. So based on style alone I would place the M.J bottle somewhere in the 1870's, i.e. solidly in the Matt Johannes era. That Massolt and Johannes must still be out there somewhere waiting for me.
