Helena, Toledo, and H. G. Harter

Helena, Toledo, and H. G. Harter                      by Alan Borer

Helena, a village in Sandusky County Ohio on Route 6, is a pleasant-appearing hamlet. We used to go through it on the drive between Bowling Green and Fremont to see relatives. We rarely stopped in Helena. It is a very small town; by the time you passed the post office, a barber shop, and a lumber yard, you missed it. With a population (2010) of 224 people, you much watch closely to see Helena in any detail.

Looking back, however, a sizeable business with a Toledo connection was born there. Around 1885, a New York native named Helon Gepman Harter set himself up as a druggist in Helena. For fifteen years, Harter pedaled his trade in Helena. Slowly and steadily, Harter built up a business in patent medicines. The remnants of the Black Swamp, although being quickly drained, were in the area, and Hartman knew that the very term “black swamp” brought to mind cholera, malaria, and dysentery to his Helena customers. So it was no surprise that in 1893, when Harter trademarked his now-popular medicine, he called it “Black Swamp Remedy.”

As H. G. Harter’s concoction grew in popularity, it came time for him to relocate to a larger city. Settling in Toledo’s East Side in 1900, he opened for business at 629 Main Street. After a few years, he switched to new headquarters to 609 South St. Clair Downtown. At his new plant he diversified, selling oddly named pills for people and livestock such as “Crewso Poultry Powder,” “Noxit Quinine,” “Protolene”(for sheep), “Louse Snuff,” and my favorite, “Fatmore,” apparently a supplement to help hogs gain weight.

The “Black Swamp Remedy,” Harter’s primary product, was not necessarily a piece of quackery. Sometimes called “Black Swamp Blackberry,” the mixture’s main ingredient was in fact blackberry root. Pharmacists of the time understood the astringent properties of blackberry needed to treat dysentery, a major complaint in the days before sanitation. Harter’s Black Swamp medicine was not just hokum. Others, however, were more questionable. The company made “Lung Balsam,” which was 15% alcohol and also contained chloroform!

A good businessman, Harter advertised widely. Newspaper ads proclaimed the virtues of the Black Swamp Blackberry as being “Better than Gold.” One ad suggested that the remedy would help “Save the Children” from summertime, and thus mosquito-spread, cramped stomachs. Knowing that potential customers were swayed by free handouts, Harter produced a “Black Swamp Cash Book” for use as a token gift. Produced cheaply, it was only a few pages for keeping track of one’s purchases, but helped customers keep the name in mind.

As the Black Swamp faded into memory, and the medicinal use of blackberry gave way to modern medicine, H. G. Harter saw sales of his formulas begin to dwindle. Harter, who lived above the St. Clair St. factory, died in 1937. The firm was listed in the Toledo City Directory until 1939, and was finally closed in 1946. He is buried in Woodlawn Cemetery.

The “quack” patent medicine salesman shows up in many comedies and melodramas. I remember W. C. Fields and “The Three Stooges” playing fraudulent medicine hucksters. But H. G. Harter appeared to believe in the “Black Swamp” medicine he sold. And it probably did help people who contracted swamp diseases, although not as well as modern medicine.