The Pocket Physician

The National Druggist, 1888

Before Vick's Vapo Rub (which was first sold in 1905 under the name Vick's Magic Croup Salve) there was another topical rub made with menthol, with a far more poetic name: Mentholine, the "Pocket Physician."

Mentholine, seen here in an 1888 advertisement, was marketed as a "Japanese Headache Cure." Japanese menthol is a perennial mint;  eCauldron notes that the essential oil derived from this plant is used as a candy and drink flavoring. And the oil and leaves are also still used as remedies for pain, sore throats and  - yes - headaches.

Scribner's Magazine, 1888

Mentholine and only Mentholine was the genuine article; it was first brought out by Dundas Dick and Co. in 1883 and became extremely popular. This led, of course, to cheap imitations, many of which were made with more wax, powder and grease than actual menthol.  An 1884 article in the Canadian Pharmaceutical Journal outlined the ways in which a consumer could test how greasy the cones were, which involved heating bits on the stove and sound quite tiresome.

Therefore it would save time (and possibly getting burnt, in which case you would surely want the fully mentholated cones) if the consumer, headache-stricken or not, would merely "beware of imitations in fancy boxes." Menthol is still used as a topical treatment for pain, including headache pain - so these probably did work well, unlike many Victorian analgesics.

Mother Shipton in Brooklyn

Cover of Mother Shipton, worse for wear

In the mid-1890s, Amelia M. Hazen kept a boarding house at 302 Schermerhorn Street in Brooklyn. Amelia was also known in the city as a fortune teller called Madame de Garry. As Madame de Garry, she ran a "fortune telling establishment for women" at 139 Willoughby Street. She was also the author of a volume entitled Mother Shipton's Gipsy Fortune Teller (the link will take you to a digitized copy at Internet Archive). Internet Archive lists the author as A. Wehman (presumably a relative of the publisher Henry Wehman). The title is supposed to suggest a far more famous book entitled Mother Shipton's Fortune Teller (1860). The original Mother Shipton was an English prophetess called Ursula Southill (1488-1561) whose prophecies were first published in 1641. She was famous for having predicted, among other things, that the end of the world would come in 1881.

As for Amelia Hazen, the Brooklyn Eagle described her as being famous for her predictions also:

[Mrs. Hazen is] a seeress, [who] knows what is going to happen in Mrs. Smith's kitchen next Monday and how many hired girls Mrs. Jones will have in 1897 and warns Maggie Murphy to beware of a large, dark man who will meet her on Navy street disguised with a diamond pin and green whiskers, and [who] does other useful things for cash.*

William Hazen was Amelia's estranged husband. He was a gentleman who was "a dealer in forbidden and abhorrent things to drink." Elsewhere he is called "Vermouth manufacturer" with offices in Manhattan and Brooklyn (perhaps the vermouth was of a particularly poor and abhorrent quality).

The original Mother Shipton

William Hazen is listed  in the 1880 US census as a resident of Jacksonville, Florida. He was a merchant, age 23 (born in Indiana) and had been married in 1880 to 22 year old Flora (Paretts**) Hazen (born in Georgia). He married Amy/Amelia M. (Grady) Dzialyuski - perhaps bigamously - in 1888, when  he was 31 and she was about 34 years old.

Amelia told the Brooklyn Supreme Court that she had given William $1700 she had made selling a saloon, but that this "had never been returned to her." Furthermore, he had deserted her in 1895 and taken up with another woman. She had seen him in August 1895 on the Elevated with another woman. When William noticed Amelia, she said, "he ran away down the stairs." She added that he was "earning great wealth" - the Sun quoted her as saying he earned $5000 a year. She also said that he had struck her and "mangled" her finger, and stolen jewelry from her that was worth $800.

Mr. Hazen retaliated by telling the court that Amelia drank (especially beer) and gambled. Even worse, she was a bigamist -  she was still married to a man named "Djaynski" who was "in the South somewhere" -  and had a son with him, who was the source of the trouble between them.

Mr. Hazen's lawyer said that Amelia had abandoned William in Jacksonville in 1890 after two years of marriage. The $800 worth of jewelry was not stolen, either - it was supposed to pay for her to move to Cincinnati (it is not clear whether she actually went there). William and Amelia must have reconciled around 1892, because in that year they moved to New York together. As for the physical abuse, said William's lawyer, the injury to Amelia's finger came about because her finger got caught in William's coat sleeve.

Judge Osborne, after hearing all this, "reserved decision" - clearly, he did not quite know what to make of all of this. And as so often happens with interesting Eagle stories, there is no follow up. In addition, I was surprised not to find Madame De Garry advertising in the papers. But I am adding her to my New York and Brooklyn Victorian Fortune Teller/Clairvoyant database (this is offline, by the way). When (or if) I find out anything more about her, I will post an update.

*"Other useful things" - I think that the Eagle is hinting that Mrs. Hazen also provided shadier services as well as telling fortunes - perhaps having to do with treating "female complaints" or running a matrimonial bureau, both of which were sidelines for other fortune tellers/clairvoyants of the period.

**Percetti, not Paretts, in the WorldConnect database; there is a 24 year old Eugene Percetti in the Hazen household in 1880, perhaps a brother.

Sources and Links to Sources

"A Fortune Teller's Mistake," Brooklyn Daily Eagle, Dec. 7, 1896, p. 18.
"A Fortune Teller's Ill Fortune," Brooklyn Daily Eagle, Dec. 12, 1896, p. 12.
"The Troubles of the Hazens," New York Sun,  Dec. 8, 1896, p. 11. [Cites Justice Van Wyck, not Osborne; states Hazen's salary according to him as $5000 a year; he said it was $10 a week which is $480 a year].
"New Corporations," New York Times, Nov. 17, 1894. [the new William H. Hazen Company will sell "vermouth cordials and other like commodities" in NYC and has a capital of $10,000]

William Henry Hazen at WorldConnect: William Henry Hazen was born in Indiana in 1857, lived in Jacksonville, Florida in the 1880s, and was a "chemist' in Brooklyn, NY in the 1890s. According to this record, Amelia was born Amy Grady; William had also married a Minnie Bryan in between Flora (who died in 1885) and Amy/Amelia.

The Hazen marriage at FamilySearch's Florida Marriages 1837-1974: William H. Hazen and Amy M. Dzialyuski were married April 22, 1888 in Duval County, Florida.


Amelia Hazen in the 1880 US census for Jacksonville, Florida: she was then Amie Dzialynski, born in Maine ca 1854; husband John was a 32 year old cigar manufacturer, born in Florida to Russian-born parents; their son Ernest was born in Florida about 1877, and is the stepson referred to in the 1896 Brooklyn divorce proceedings.)

William H. Hazen in the 1880 US census for Jacksonville, Florida (born in Indiana in 1857; his wife Flora's relative Eugene Percetti, and a Frank T Fernandez living in the same household, worked in a cigar factory - perhaps owned by Amelia's husband?)