# J A Aitken - Alliston Ontario Hutch bottle



## RCO (Mar 3, 2019)

was going to share a bottle I was researching , was flipping thru a local history book at the library and it had a section on bottlers in Simcoe county area . and some pictures of various bottles , most I had seen before or have . but I hadn't seen the Alliston hutch before , in fact I don't recall ever seeing one anywhere . the only Alliston Ontario bottle I've ever had was a milk jug but I traded it for another bottle a couple years ago 

which was why I took a picture of it so I could look more into it , I'm assuming its fairly rare 

there is a listing in one of my bottle books for a couple Alliston bottlers , John A Aitken is listed as operating from 1884 - 1890 

Alliston Ontario is a small city surrounded by farmland , 18,000 or more people now but might of only been home to 1400 or so back then ( not including rural areas nearby )


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## RCO (Mar 3, 2019)

my research has mostly hit a wall , didn't seem to be much available on this bottle .the book had a short paragraph about it on another page . didn't think to save it at the time and it might of had some useful info 

the bottle book says he made - mineral water , soda water , ginger beer and pop


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## RCO (Jan 15, 2021)

close to 2 years ago I first noticed this bottle in a book at library , actually found some new information yesterday . its listed on a site called the hutch book which features many hutch style bottles . 

doesn't provide much information , but listed as rare and includes a picture so there is at least a couple of them out there , and likely a few other buried somewhere in the rural farmland of that area


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## mctaggart67 (Jan 16, 2021)

Yes, very rare. Same fellow that bottled in nearby Orangeville, Ontario.


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## RCO (Jan 16, 2021)

mctaggart67 said:


> Yes, very rare. Same fellow that bottled in nearby Orangeville, Ontario.



I wasn't aware he bottled in Orangeville too but its close to Alliston so makes sense


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## ArmyDigger (Jan 17, 2021)

well thats the first canadian hutch ive seen to be honest I didn't real know or think that canada made hutchs since most you see are us.


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## Nickneff (Jan 17, 2021)

RCO said:


> my research has mostly hit a wall , didn't seem to be much available on this bottle .the book had a short paragraph about it on another page . didn't think to save it at the time and it might of had some useful info
> 
> the bottle book says he made - mineral water , soda water , ginger beer and pop


It's like this with bottles it depends on what area of the country you live in you got to realize back then when these bottles was brand new they didn't get distributed all over the country you're talkin wagon horseback so usually the bottle stayed in their little towns and their little state every now and then I get a bottle from quite a distance away but usually they're from your hometown that's why it's so hard to find out about bottle sometimes depending on the book other state where the guy lives that wrote the book he's going to know a lot about the bottles around the his area millions and millions of bottles millions and millions of places a lot of times you have a hard time finding out about him but on this site there's so many different people from all around the country that helps the whole lot


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## RCO (Jan 17, 2021)

ArmyDigger said:


> well thats the first canadian hutch ive seen to be honest I didn't real know or think that canada made hutchs since most you see are us.



if you check out the hutch book site there is all kinds of hutch bottles from Canada listed most are considered rare unless there from major cities like - Toronto , Hamilton , Winnipeg , Halifax , which had more people and bottlers back then 

even Toronto hutches were hard to come by until they decided to build condo's along the waterfront which happened to be where the old dumps were so all kinds of older Toronto bottles were suddenly dug up a lot of hutches found there


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## RCO (Jan 17, 2021)

Nickneff said:


> It's like this with bottles it depends on what area of the country you live in you got to realize back then when these bottles was brand new they didn't get distributed all over the country you're talkin wagon horseback so usually the bottle stayed in their little towns and their little state every now and then I get a bottle from quite a distance away but usually they're from your hometown that's why it's so hard to find out about bottle sometimes depending on the book other state where the guy lives that wrote the book he's going to know a lot about the bottles around the his area millions and millions of bottles millions and millions of places a lot of times you have a hard time finding out about him but on this site there's so many different people from all around the country that helps the whole lot



true alliston wouldn't of been that big and not a lot of reason for people from outside the area to travel there .

so most of these bottles would of been used and tossed away within that small geographic area 

unless you find a really old dump or privy in that area your not very likely to find one


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## ArmyDigger (Jan 17, 2021)

RCO said:


> if you check out the hutch book site there is all kinds of hutch bottles from Canada listed most are considered rare unless there from major cities like - Toronto , Hamilton , Winnipeg , Halifax , which had more people and bottlers back then
> 
> even Toronto hutches were hard to come by until they decided to build condo's along the waterfront which happened to be where the old dumps were so all kinds of older Toronto bottles were suddenly dug up a lot of hutches found there


funny thing is ive been to hutch book to look my pottstown pa hutch and I didn't see none maybe its because I didn't look though.


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## RCO (Jan 17, 2021)

ArmyDigger said:


> funny thing is ive been to hutch book to look my pottstown pa hutch and I didn't see none maybe its because I didn't look though.



you go to search hutcheson's and select country or province , don't think you can search Canada entirely but by province instead 

BC search shows 22 bottles 

Alberta - 2 both from Edmonton 

Sask - 1 bottle 

Yukon - 4 bottles 

Manitoba - 14 bottles 

Ontario -  220 bottles 

Quebec - 35 bottles 

New Brunswick - 13 bottles 

Nova Scotia -  62 bottles 

PEI -  7 bottles 

Newfoundland -  zero not sure there is really none from there 


seems like there site has a lot of info from certain areas but less from others , not sure there is really only 1 from Sask and 2 from alberta but it might be less cause those areas didn't start to boom until early 1900's and by then hutch out of style


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## RCO (Jan 17, 2021)

note I would imagine there is still a few more from Ontario not listed cause my bottle book lists dozens of bottlers who operated in 1880-1890's who aren't listed there as having a hutch bottle but if they operated in that period what else would they have been using ? 

its possible some used paper labels or hutch bottles with no embossing but most hutch bottles seem to have basic embossing so it seems highly possible there is more out there that haven't been found yet


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