Another message on a bottle, Part 1

By Steve Roush
HCP columnist

Ladies and gentlemen, when I was just a lad, I was fascinated with old, glass bottles.
 
Now, I never bought any old bottles for my “collection,” they were “discovered” around the family farm – quite a few of them were tucked away in an old outhouse. 

Last year, I wrote a series of offerings about an old McKeehan, Hiestand Grocery Co. glass bottle, which came from a company that began operations in Hillsboro in 1876 and lasted until 1941.
 
I always liked that bottle because it had “Hillsboro, Ohio” on it, but there was another old bottle that was my favorite – well, favorite might not be the best adjective here. Curious and intrigued might be better descriptors. This bottle had the words “Konjola, Mosby Medicine Co., Cincinnati, U.S.A.” on it along with an old man wearing a suit and tie.
 
I remember showing the bottle to my Dad and asking him what (if anything) he knew about it. I don’t recall receiving a satisfactory explanation to my query, just that it was an old medicine bottle by a Cincinnati company that was most likely no longer in business because he had never heard of the Mosby Medicine Co.
 
And that was that.
 
Of course, that was long before the internet, and it was during a time when glass bottles were still a big thing. I remember taking pop bottles to the grocery store for a refund with my family, it would be years before glass soda bottles would be replaced by aluminum cans and plastic bottles in the Roush homestead.
 
Have you heard of the Mosby Medicine Company of Cincinnati? Now that we have the worldwide web, feel free to Google it if you want to, but it’s not necessary because I’ll tell you all about it and the man behind the company.
 
It’s actually a rather interesting tale.
 
The man behind Mosby Medicine Company was Gilbert Hahn Mosby, who was born in January of 1886 – 140 years ago – in Tyrone, Anderson County, Ky. Tyrone, Ky. is now described as a ghost town, located east of Lawrenceburg along the Kentucky River.
 
Konjola was Mosby Medicine Co.’s best known product and was described as a “cure all” type of medicine. A 1929 advertisement of Konjola said that the elixir contains “well-known medicinal ingredients,” such as Senega Root, Fluffy Pepsin, Glycerine, Senna Leaves, Potassium Iodide, Lady Slipper Root, Pink Root, Cascara Sagrada, Golden Seal Root “and many more ingredients which make up a splendid medicine of proven merit.”
 
Now, in 1929, Gilbert Mosby would have been 43 years old, so I take back calling him an “old man” earlier in this offering (Sorry, Gilbert)
 
There’s a lot more to unpack here; but let’s pause for now, and we’ll continue next time.
 
Steve Roush is president of the Highland County Historical Society and served as chairman and vice chairman on the HCHS Board of Trustees for two terms, a board member of the Highland District Hospital Foundation, a vice president of an international media company and a columnist and contributing writer for The Highland County Press. He can be reached by email at roush_steve@msn.com.