Crowley & Coleman


Company Names, addresses, dates1:
  Crowley & Coleman, D south n 3rd West (1861-1863) 2
  Coleman & Crowley, H south n 4 1/2 West (1865)
  Crowley & Coleman, H south n 4 1/2 West (1866-1867)

Notes:
John Crowley and Thomas Coleman ran a bottling business from 1861-18671,2.
They advertised that they manufactured & bottled Mineral water, and they also bottled Ale, Porter & Cider. In 1867, they had an advertisement that said they also bottled Robert Gray's Celebrated Single X and Double XX Philadelphia Ale3.

For some reason their name was reversed as "Coleman & Crowley" in the 1865 directory, then it went back to "Crowley & Coleman" in subsequent years1. I don't know if that was an actual name change, or if it was a misprint in the city directories.

After 1867, "Crowley & Coleman" were no longer listed in the city directories as a team, but the 2 guys were listed individually in the residential section as follows:
  John Crowley [mineral waters], 401 Va Av (1868)
  John Crowley [mnfr min water], 2d nr Va Av (1869)
  Thomas Coleman [porter & ale bottler], 4 1/2 w n H south (1867)
  Thomas Coleman [bottler], I s nr 4 1/2 w (1868)
  Thomas Coleman [bottler], 616 3d sw (1871)
  Richard Coleman [soda water manufactory], cor King & Peyton (1873)
Note that last entry was a "Richard" Coleman, who may or may not have been related to Thomas Coleman. Also, his address was in Alexandria VA, not Washington DC.
It's not clear what happened to the 2 partners in subsequent years. There were other people with the same first & last names living in Washington DC, so it's hard to keep track. There was a "Thomas Coleman" listed as a saloon owner in subsequent years, so that might have been the same Thomas Coleman from the bottling establishment.

Bottles:

crowley2 book # 199
This is an aqua 7" squat blob top bottle embossed:
front: CROWLEY & COLEMAN / WASIIINGTON / D.C.
back (in block letters): C & C
crowley_mistake Were you paying attention to the above bottle? It doesn't say "WASHINGTON", it says "WASIIINGTON"! The "H" was not crossed. Here's a close up view. Other examples of this bottle have the "H" crossed properly (see bottle below). So the mistake was noticed and fixed, but I wonder how many bottles like this one were made?
crowley_03 book # 199
This is a similar aqua 7" squat blob top like the above bottle, but without the mistake. It's embossed:
front: CROWLEY & COLEMAN / WASHINGTON / D.C.
back (in block letters): C & C
crowley_06 book # 199
This is similar to the bottle above, but it's green and it has a different style of lip. It's a 7.4" green squat bottle, embossed:
front: CROWLEY & COLEMAN / WASHINGTON / D.C.
back (in block letters): C & C
crowley_05 book # 200
These are aqua applied-lip blob top bottles. Left is 7.2" and right is 6.8". I wonder if the difference in height is due to the way the blob-tops were applied?
They are both embossed:
front: CROWLEY & COLEMAN / WASHINGTON / D.C.
back (in block letters): C & C
crowley_04 book # 200
This is 7" green short-blob bottle similar to the ones above except for the color. It is embossed:
front: CROWLEY & COLEMAN / WASHINGTON / D.C.
back (in block letters): C & C


Other Items:
crowley_1867 This is an advertisement from the 1867 Boyds Washington DC city directory.


1 Boyd's Directory for the District of Columbia (various years)
2 Washington DC Evening Star, 18-Sep-1861, p.3 (no city directory for 1861, but this indicates they were in business that year)
3 Washington DC Evening Union, 26-Jan-1866, p.2 (ad for Gray's X and XX Ale)


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This page last updated on July 26, 2019.