Whitall's Patent Atmospheric Jar

 

A glassworks originally established at Millville, New Jersey, in 1806 was acquired by the Whitall Brothers in 1844. Whitall, Tatum & Company was formed in 1857 and operated independently until 1938.

There are two styles of this jar that survive. The earlier silhouette was a square shoulder and had a domed cap. The later style had a rounded shoulder and a flat cap. A substantial number of the later ones survive, while the earlier ones suffered loss through attrition and breakage. The finish on these jars are similiar to the wax seal cap/finish but instead had a glass lid which fit into or between the circular but parallel ridges on the top of the lip, and was held down with a thumbscrew clamp. Inside these ridges was to sit a rubber gasket.  The use of glass lid, instead of metal, would have been a natural evolution from the wax sealers metal cap to avoid imparting a metallic taste to the contents of the jar - a common complaint.

The reverse side of the Millville jars are embossed WHITALL'S PATENT / JUNE 18, 1861. The Millville Atmospheric jars date from the 1860s through the early 1890s, although the Whitall, Tatum Company produced similar "museum jars" with the same closure at least into the 1920s (Whitall Tatum & Co. 1880, 1892, 1896, 1924).  Other thumbscrew and stopper types like the Moore's jars date from the 1860s or early 1870s and the unusual Van Vliet's from the 1880s (Creswell 1987).  After that time, this style of closure was rarely used since the external "Mason's" screw-thread and Lightning type closures dominated along with a few others - like the cam lever and lid jars discussed next.

Write a review

Your Name:


Your Review: Note: HTML is not translated!

Rating: Bad            Good

Enter the code in the box below: