Early in the U.S. Civil War, the Medical College of Alabama placed an order for some chemicals with Rousseau Freres, a chemical supply house in Paris, France. And 145 years ago, in 1862, those chemicals were loaded onto a Confederate ship, bound for the Deep South. As fate would have it, this ship was intercepted on the high seas by a Yankee Clipper ship that proceeded to tow the ship into Boston Harbor, where the goods were sold at auction. Harvard College won the bidding for the chemicals, which evidently ended up in the Chemistry Building.

I first heard this tale, which frankly I thought was tall, 100 years later from then Assistant Professor Roy Olofson, who recently retired from a distinguished career at Penn State University. At that time the Chemistry Department kept a fairly large collection of chemicals in the basement of Mallinckrodt. All of these chemicals were free to us chemical researchers. So in 1962, when I was a second-year graduate student, I was poking around in this collection, and I stumbled on an odd-looking, obviously old, but unopened bottle. My interest was piqued, and then I read the label. It said “Tartrate de Soude” (sodium tartrate). On top of the label were the words, in English, “Medical College of Alabama” and on the bottom, in French, it said “Rousseau Freres, rue de l'Ecole de Medicine 9 Paris.”

So Roy Olofson was not putting us on after all! Since these chemicals were free, I decided to keep the bottle as a souvenir. I have moved it around all over the country for 45 years. I always had in mind to donate it to a museum some day. That day has now arrived. Here it is, returned to the Chemistry Department for its historical collection, which Tony Shaw has assured me will provide a good home.