# A Gauvreau Mattawa Ontario bottle



## RCO (Apr 30, 2017)

another bottle show find , just getting around to posting it . I was aware there was a bottler from Mattawa Ontario as I had seen a listing in a bottle book for one but I had never actually seen a bottle before . its a fairly small town and only around 2000 people today and not sure what population would of been when bottle used 

a seller had this bottle at the Toronto bottle show and I had to pay a little for it but still felt the price was rather reasonable considering its rarity . 

don't really know a lot about it , I've actually never been to Mattawa before , although have been to north bay many times and that's fairly close by , just never been down highway 17 in that direction before 

also don't  have any local history books from that area which might be able to shed more light on who A Gauvreau was or who was bottling in that area . according to a web search it might be Albert Gauvreau . 

there is also 3 listings in the ontario bottle books for mattawa . napoleon Gauvreau 1895 ( mineral waters ) , O W Gauvreau 1908 ( aerated waters )  and A Gauvreau 1931 . the time span between the listings and fact there only for 1 year seems odd and perhaps they operated a bit longer . there just wasn't any records to be found . it definitely appears the Gauvreau family was involved in bottling  in mattawa for a few years


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## RCO (Apr 30, 2017)

also acquired another northern Ontario bottle thru a trade , an aqua version of the Macdonald and co Cobalt Ontario bottle , cobalt was a silver mining boom town around the time bottle used so there is actually a larger number of different bottles from the town , saw 3 or 4 other bottles from cobalt at show , a couple from bottlers I had never even heard of or unlisted in book , but you can't buy everything so didn't get them


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## botlguy (May 1, 2017)

This is sort of off topic but is there or has there been any "Privy" (as opposed to dumps) digging going on in Canada? I can't remember ever hearing about it done up there. Maybe it's just my bad memory.
Jim S.


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## CanadianBottles (May 1, 2017)

I just got a nice tooled lip version of that MacDonald bottle yesterday at the Ottawa show, probably from the same dealer.  It's not really the area that I normally collect from but I got it for only five bucks so I figured I might as well.  I think it's my first Northern Ontario bottle.


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## CanadianBottles (May 1, 2017)

botlguy said:


> This is sort of off topic but is there or has there been any "Privy" (as opposed to dumps) digging going on in Canada? I can't remember ever hearing about it done up there. Maybe it's just my bad memory.
> Jim S.


Seems to be pretty rare.  It is occasionally done but I rarely hear about anyone doing it.  I know the diggers out  on the West Coast dig privies but I don't remember ever hearing anyone mention doing it in Quebec, and rarely in Ontario.  I'm not sure why.  I've always wondered about trying it out but don't know any active bottle diggers currently in my area and certainly don't want to try it out on my own.


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## RCO (May 1, 2017)

CanadianBottles said:


> I just got a nice tooled lip version of that MacDonald bottle yesterday at the Ottawa show, probably from the same dealer.  It's not really the area that I normally collect from but I got it for only five bucks so I figured I might as well.  I think it's my first Northern Ontario bottle.



there was a dealer at the Toronto show who had a huge assortment of northern Ontario bottles and many at really reasonable prices like $5 - $10 , some of them were fairly uncommon too .

some of the good ones likely sold before Ottawa show as he seemed to be fairly busy  , saw him sell a really uncommon acl from Kirkland Lake . I also got a north bay and Kirkland lake bottle for $5 each that I haven't posted yet


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## RCO (May 1, 2017)

botlguy said:


> This is sort of off topic but is there or has there been any "Privy" (as opposed to dumps) digging going on in Canada? I can't remember ever hearing about it done up there. Maybe it's just my bad memory.
> Jim S.



it really doesn't seem to be that common , I've heard about it being done but mostly in farm country in southern Ontario . where I live the Canadian shield starts and ground is much more rocky and harder , its unlikely many privies were dug into this area originally  , its simply too difficult . although some could exist on older farms and in older areas of the nearby towns


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## RCO (May 1, 2017)

also have an older postcard from Mattawa , its postmarked 1906 a bit earlier than bottle but shows town from a distance . you can see the large catholic church and a few other buildings , seems to have been a fairly small town back then


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## CanadianBottles (May 1, 2017)

Yep that sounds like the guy, I also bought a couple ACL's from Kingston that I didn't have.  That was all he had from my neck of the woods.  

As for privy digging, it's very odd that someone would bother digging on a farm, I was under the impression that those privies were usually nearly empty.  I think there are a few mentions of it in the GTA on the ecbw website.  Never heard of anyone doing it out my way, although I'm sure there are plenty of privies to dig.  I'd imagine Montreal would also be a gold mine for privies, though there are a lot of bottle diggers in Quebec so maybe they do dig them and I just don't know about it.  Never seen anything mentioning it on the Quebec forum though.


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## Robby Raccoon (May 1, 2017)

A scene of the town, not necessarily the whole.... but my city is of quite a decent size and has few buildings over 3 stories. Not sure why a tiny town would have a huge Cathedral and a 4-story court(?) building plus a well-maintained beach-front park back in 1906. Not sure if that's normal for small Canadian towns. 
Wikipedia shows the last 20 years' population as a constant decline. Could have been bigger back in the day, than it is today, with that being the general trend for the last century.


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## RCO (May 1, 2017)

Spirit Bear said:


> A scene of the town, not necessarily the whole.... but my city is of quite a decent size and has few buildings over 3 stories. Not sure why a tiny town would have a huge Cathedral and a 4-story court(?) building plus a well-maintained beach-front park back in 1906. Not sure if that's normal for small Canadian towns.
> Wikipedia shows the last 20 years' population as a constant decline. Could have been bigger back in the day, than it is today, with that being the general trend for the last century.



the large catholic churches aren't as common in Ontario but all over quebec there is huge catholic churches . even in many rather small towns . mattawa seems to have had a large French population which would explain the large catholic church 

according to a picture online , its a roman catholic church , presbytery , hospital and school . shown in the postcard . but the large church doesn't appear to be there anymore and I can't seem to find anything online which explains why , a smaller church appears to be on same site now


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## RCO (May 1, 2017)

CanadianBottles said:


> Yep that sounds like the guy, I also bought a couple ACL's from Kingston that I didn't have.  That was all he had from my neck of the woods.
> 
> As for privy digging, it's very odd that someone would bother digging on a farm, I was under the impression that those privies were usually nearly empty.  I think there are a few mentions of it in the GTA on the ecbw website.  Never heard of anyone doing it out my way, although I'm sure there are plenty of privies to dig.  I'd imagine Montreal would also be a gold mine for privies, though there are a lot of bottle diggers in Quebec so maybe they do dig them and I just don't know about it.  Never seen anything mentioning it on the Quebec forum though.



I've seen him at that show before but this year he had way more bottles , don't know if he's clearing out his collection or bought a collection and reselling it but he had way more bottles for sale than last year 

although he seemed busy likely due to his reasonable prices , I didn't see a lot of bottles selling at the other tables when I was there . it seemed a bit slower than last year , not necessary less people but less stuff selling . when I left after an hour a lot of the tables were very full and hadn't sold many bottles . 

but is other items to buy there , I also bought 2 local history books that are from my area both for around $10 each , the one was a bargain , on amazon its going for $30 , was cheapest I saw online


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## CanadianBottles (May 1, 2017)

Yeah those huge churches were very common in towns with large Catholic populations.  A general rule of thumb is that any French-speaking town large enough to have a main street would have a huge church, and many too small to have a main street would have one anyway.  When you're driving through Quebec you can always tell when you're approaching a town because you can see the church before anything else.  The three-storey building is unusual, I assume that's the school.  I was wondering if it might have been a residential school but I can't find a record of one being in Mattawa.  It does seem a bit big for a town of that size, maybe it served several communities.

Yeah that guy told me he was selling off some of his collection.  He actually ended up being the only person I bought any bottles from this time around.  The Ottawa show seemed very slow this year, this was the first year that I didn't buy anything from Ottawa.  Some of the sellers weren't selling any bottles at all and many didn't have much that I hadn't seen at the regular Nostalgia show.  There was practically nothing I was interested in my price range this year.  My best find ended up being an advertising glass from a Toronto drug store that advertised cameras.  It's weird, it seems like my finds have really dried up in the past year or two.


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## RCO (May 2, 2017)

CanadianBottles said:


> Yeah those huge churches were very common in towns with large Catholic populations.  A general rule of thumb is that any French-speaking town large enough to have a main street would have a huge church, and many too small to have a main street would have one anyway.  When you're driving through Quebec you can always tell when you're approaching a town because you can see the church before anything else.  The three-storey building is unusual, I assume that's the school.  I was wondering if it might have been a residential school but I can't find a record of one being in Mattawa.  It does seem a bit big for a town of that size, maybe it served several communities.
> 
> Yeah that guy told me he was selling off some of his collection.  He actually ended up being the only person I bought any bottles from this time around.  The Ottawa show seemed very slow this year, this was the first year that I didn't buy anything from Ottawa.  Some of the sellers weren't selling any bottles at all and many didn't have much that I hadn't seen at the regular Nostalgia show.  There was practically nothing I was interested in my price range this year.  My best find ended up being an advertising glass from a Toronto drug store that advertised cameras.  It's weird, it seems like my finds have really dried up in the past year or two.




the guy with the northern ont bottles must of dug up some pretty good dumps when he was younger to have acquired all the bottles he had , I'd assume he must of found a dump in the Cobalt or Kirkland lake areas based on where his bottles were from 

I'm not really sure why the show seemed slower , was a big line up at 10 am when it opened and a bit of an initial rush . but after that it didn't really seem like a lot sold ( which seems odd as it be a lot cheaper to buy the bottles in person than paying the crazy shipping costs online )  

. I could of easily bought more bottles if I had wanted too . had seen a neat Oshawa Bottling works bottle , same as the Savoy beverages bottle I posted for $10 but it was damaged on bottom so didn't get it . and some other neat hard to find bottles from cobalt for $5 or $10 each .but you can't buy everything 

I also can't seem to find any good local history books from north bay or mattawa that might mention more about the bottle or businesses in the town  , for some reason I don't really have any from that area . and I have a large assortment of local Ontario books from most other places . I searched on amazon and was a couple on the nipissing railway and is a steamer book that features north bay but were way too expense. also a 1900's book that features north bay and cobalt , but guy on amazon wants $150 for it , it sounds really interesting but price is way too high .


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## CanadianBottles (May 2, 2017)

Yeah if I collected from across Ontario then I would have bought a lot more of his bottles, he had a lot of cool stuff.  I'll buy any Canadian soda bottle that's got nice embossing and is BIM for five bucks, but I think there was only the one that he had left.

I try to pick up those sorts of local history books whenever I can as well.  Some of them are very rare, one or two of the ones I've got are only listed as being in the Toronto Public Library's inventory, there's no other mention of them existing online.  I still haven't gotten around to actually reading most of them mind you.


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