Twentieth Century Life in these Houses: Bottle and Snuff Can

Bottle and Snuff Can

Figure 59: Bottle and snuff can

Old bottles were used for homemade medicines. This one might have been used for making snakeroot medicine. Ms. Catherine showed how to prepare snakeroot by putting the snakeroot she had gathered in a bottle with a little whiskey and letting it stand. Mr. Waiters recalled how they had cured Ms. Catherine’s mother of fever by giving her snakeroot. The snuff can is the Tube Rose brand from the Pinkney home. Snuff cans were frequently seen in Mars Bluff houses. (Photo 1998)

Amelia Wallace Vernon, African Americans at Mars Bluff, South Carolina (Baton Rouge, Louisiana State University, 1993. Reprint. Columbia: University of South Carolina, 1995), p.56-58.