The brass item is indeed a match box, also known as a match safe, advertising the
Happy Thought brand of tobacco, made and distributed by the Wilson & McCallay company of Ohio. The original cap, now missing on this excavated example, would have displayed a camel image logo. This camel was in honor of a somewhat humorous incident of a tired and injured camel in the desert of Egypt, miraculously regaining spirit and strength, after eating a sizable plug of
Happy Thought tobacco.
http://news.google.com/newspapers?n...mM1AAAAIBAJ&sjid=IhQLAAAAIBAJ&pg=2840,4771070
This particular advertising match safe, likely dates circa 1890 or thereabout.
Butler County Ohio History:
WILSON & MCCALLAY have tobacco works that are 140x144 feet, three stories high. This business was established here in 1870, when they had a capacity of two hundred thousand pounds, and have now increased that capacity to three million pounds per annum, and furnish employment to from three hundred and fifty to four hundred hands. They have in all the enormous floor surface of 66,480 square feet, and a large and well furnished office. The kilns are two in number, 20x75 feet each, the floors fo which are laid with tousands of feet of steam pipe. The spinners' room is 50x100 feet; machine room. 50x70 feet; wrapping department, 60x100 feet, where all wrappers are put on by hand. The press room is 60x100 feet, containing twenty presses, and the large engine room, 60x60, containing an eighty-five horse power engine. The firm employs seven salemen.
In 1877 Mr. MCCALLAY, in company with his brother-in-law, Mr. Robert WILSON, bought the tobacco factory then carried on by Mr. P. J. SORG, Mr. John AUER, and Mr. WILSON. Mr. MCCALLAY and Mr. WILSON bought the interest of the other partners. A large addition to the factory was soon built, and the enterprise greatly increased. The original capacity of four hundred thousand pounds per year was increased the first year to nearly a million, and the second year to nearly two million pounds, which is its present annual product. The plug tobacco manufactory of WILSON & MCCALLAY is one of the largest west of the Alleghanies, and gives employment to upward of three hundred operatives.
CC Hunter
