Pharmaceutical or medicine bottles were common in the 19th and 20th centuries until it was no longer legal to sell "medicines" without a licence. People, especially women due to the large number of "medicines" devoted to relieving "female problems," were becoming addicted to the drugs (such as cocaine) and alcohol used to make traditional patented medicines. The maker's mark, or writing on this bottle reads: NORTHROP & LYMAN CO. LIMITED TORONTO, ONT.
Although the City Directory for Toronto in 1861-2 lists an Elliot Lyman and Company on King Street East, and the Directory for 1880 lists a Lyman Brothers and Company on Front Street East, there was no mention of an achemist, drug manufacturer, or druggist named Northrop. Lyman Brothers and Company disappears from the Directories between 1915 and 1920. Let's assume the bottle was manufactured sometime during Mr. Lyman's practice, from at least 1861 to about 1915.
Another item that was uncovered was a chamber pot. This was a common household item before indoor plumbing was available. Around the turn of the century, some newer houses may have had indoor plumbing. This would depend of course, on whether a family was wealthy enough to afford it, as well as how close they were to the centre of the city and its sewage system. We can therefore date the chamber pot fragments to before about 1900.
The maker's mark on the bottom of this plate reads "Arctic Scenery". This plate was made in Staffordshire as a part of a series called "Arctic Scenes of Canada". It dates to around 1825. This gives us a date of post 1861 until shortly after 1920 for this layer.
