Found a couple diving this weekend

[adshepard]

Did some diving off Eastport, Maine this past weekend and found a couple of nice bottles.

About 10 minutes in to the first dive this "Father John's Medicine" turned up.

I spotted just the corner of it in the silt and could see it was a paneled bottle and just hoped that it was intact.

Certainly not the oldest or rarest bottle around but it's in darn good shape. You can Google plenty of information on Father John's.

Alan

 

[adshepard]

On the second dive I came up with a nice amber beer from Halifax, Nova Scotia.

Some quick research dates the bottle from 1895 to 1917. Halifax Breweries Limited was a group of five breweries in Nova Scotia. Three of those breweries were located in the harbor area and were destroyed in 1917.

From Wikipedia:

The Halifax Explosion occurred on Thursday, December 6, 1917, when the city of Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada, was devastated by the huge detonation of a French cargo ship, fully loaded with wartime explosives, that had accidentally collided with a ship set for Belgium in "The Narrows" section of the Halifax Harbour. Approximately 2,000 people (mostly Canadians) were killed by debris, fires, or collapsed buildings, and it is estimated that over 9,000 people were injured. This is still one of the world's largest man-made, conventional explosions to date.

At 8:40 in the morning, Mont-Blanc, a French cargo ship which was chartered by the French government to carry munitions, collided with the unloaded Norwegian ship Imo (pronounced E-mo), chartered by the Commission for Relief in Belgium to carry relief supplies. Mont-Blanc caught fire ten minutes after the collision and exploded about twenty-five minutes later (at 9:04:35 AM). All buildings and structures covering nearly two square kilometres along the adjacent shore of the exploded ship were obliterated, including those in the neighbouring communities of Richmond and Dartmouth. The explosion caused a tsunami in the harbour, and a pressure wave of air that snapped trees, bent iron rails, demolished buildings, grounded vessels, and carried fragments of the Mont-Blanc for kilometres.

Alan

 

[pyshodoodle]

The Dartmouth-Halifax Munitions Ship Explosion! I did an oral report on that in 8th grade! Did not care for my English teacher and we had to do 4 oral reports that year (which I HATED - worst part of school for me!)... She was a little squeamish, so I picked topics that would disturb her.. .did one on leaches also - in jungles they can fall out of the trees onto you if I recall correctly.
When the munitions ship collided with the other ship, the people on the munitions ship fled, but did not warn anyone. Bodies looking like charred tree-stumps were found up to 2 miles away. (I did not like my English teacher.. did I say that?)

The Bluenose II is (was in the 70s-early 80s) based in Halifax - a reproduction of the national ship (schooner) of Canada... it is on their dime.

Kate

 

[pyshodoodle]

Hi Alan,

Got so excited that somebody else had ever even heard about the Dartmouth-Halifax explosion that I forgot to say you got some really nice bottles there!

Nothing like finding a nice bottle, is there?

Kate

 

[Penn Digger]

My God, how many Lowell bottles are out there! LOL

 

[adshepard]

ORIGINAL: Penn Digger

My God, how many Lowell bottles are out there! LOL

That thought crossed my mind too.

I drive through Lowell on my way to Maine all the time.

Interesting tidbit about Lowell, an old industrial town, is that it has the largest number of three family houses in the US according to some sources. The other town to have a sizeable number of these style homes is my old hometown of New Britain, Connecticut, another old industrial hub. My mother was raised in one, I lived in one until I was three.

Alan

 

[amesbury]

i live 15 minutes from lowell and if you go there it's just old factories then a couple of neihborhoods. Dont get stuck in lowell at night either!!
Oh and the history channel did a show on the monte blanc explosion and it was really good

 

[hossom1]

I believe the official state christmas tree of massachusetts is sent to boston from halifax each year as a "thankyou" for sending help of hundreds of men and supplies. Hoss

 

[ehkahk]

Very nice bottle!

 

[CALDIGR2]

Interesting site on Hamilton history, especially the house photos. If those haven't been dug already, you better get on it. The abandoned bricker is really ripe.