Rosen's Beverages Antique Bottle

What may just be seen as a piece of glass to some, is a story of the past to another.  I love local history, especially history that hasn’t been seen for decades, and you get to uncover it yourself.  This is just the case with what happened with this glass “Rosen’s Beverages” bottle.

A few years back, I was canoeing on Farrington Lake (located in Middlesex County in New Jersey).  The 290 acre lake is quite long and narrow, making it seem more like a large river.  It makes canoeing the length quite fun.  When you get to one end of it, it literally becomes a stream that is only a few feet across and less than an inch deep.  I brought my canoe up to as fast a speed as I could when I was getting close to this area so I could bottom it out on the rocks.  As I did, I decided to get out and walk to shore.

No matter where you are in the world, it’s common to find bottles and other garbage in water.  This was no different.  However, when I neared the river bank, I saw a bottle in the water that was completely black.  I could tell it was in the water for some time.  I picked it up and didn’t recognize where it was from.  I placed it in the canoe just for the heck of it, and continued walking.  When I finally canoed back, I decided to clean off the bottle.

I got the bottle to almost its original clarity save for a few brown spots inside that I couldn’t reach.  I was able to see “Rosen’s Beverages”.  There were other markings on it too:

• Contents 7 FL. Oz.
• Registered 647-2
• South River Bottling Co. South River NJ

This was as local as local history gets.  South River was just the town over.  I got quite excited.  Upon further research, not much was found out about either Rosen’s Beverages, or the South River Bottling Company (at least not online).  One newspaper from 1946 came up that had an article about Mr. Rosen, and the bottling company.  Based off of some pictures from the New Jersey Bottle Forum, this bottle is probably 1930s or 1940s.

The newspaper article from the South Amboy Citizen (August 30, 1946) claims that William Rosen headed the South River Bottling Company for the past ten years (which one could conclude to be 1936).  It is interesting to note that the article mentions the strict sanitary precautions the company adheres to.  Something we wouldn’t even question today.  (The article is on the second to last page, at the bottom).

Garbage is everywhere, but sometimes what you can manage to find can quite unique.  It makes you wonder: how did that bottle get there?  Who was drinking out of it?  Why did they discard it where they did?  What did that person end up becoming?  Things like that, one will never know, but it’s fun to imagine.