{"product_id":"antique-1920s-30s-buyers-special-mince-meat-label-edgar-brick-crosswicks-nj","title":"Antique 1920s-30s Buyers Special Mince Meat Label 🍎 LARGE VERSION, Edgar Brick \u0026 Sons Crosswicks NJ, NOS","description":"\u003ch2\u003eWho Bought Mince Meat by the 50-Pound Tub? 🥧 Antique 1920s-30s Buyers Special Mince Meat Label, Edgar Brick \u0026amp; Sons, Crosswicks, N.J.\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSize:\u003c\/strong\u003e 8 1\/4\" x 4 1\/4\"\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cdiv style=\"max-width:315px;margin:0 auto 20px;\"\u003e\u003cdiv style=\"position:relative;padding-bottom:177.78%;height:0;overflow:hidden;\"\u003e\u003ciframe src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/r5wXCjld1go\" style=\"position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer;autoplay;clipboard-write;encrypted-media;gyroscope;picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen\u003e\u003c\/iframe\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\u003cp\u003eFifty pounds of mince meat - that's a lot of pie! This is the big tub label: BUYERS SPECIAL over MINCE MEAT in heavy black letters, then \"Prepared from Apples, Dextrose, Raisins, Starch, Vinegar, Beef, Candied Peel, Spices, and Sherry Flavor and 1\/10 of 1% Benzoate of Soda,\" NET WEIGHT: 50 LBS., and MANUFACTURED BY EDGAR BRICK \u0026amp; SONS, CROSSWICKS, N.J., all inside a checkered border on cream paper. Never pasted on a tub. I figure a 50-pound tub went to a grocer or a bakery, not somebody's kitchen.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eMince pie was a big deal in those days. The recipe came over with the New England colonists, it was part of Thanksgiving dinner from the 1600s on, and mince pie was counted America's national dish until apple pie took its place in the 1940s.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch3\u003e🏪 From a General Store to the Biggest in the Country\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eEdgar Brick and his wife Susan came to Crosswicks in the 1850s and opened a general store on Main Street. In 1874 Edgar got fed up with the mince meat he was buying from Philadelphia and started making his own - he sold 76 pounds the first year. Five years later he needed more room, so in 1879 he moved two farmhouses onto the lot and joined them together into a factory. By 1900 Edgar Brick \u0026amp; Sons was the biggest mince meat maker in New Jersey.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eEdgar died in 1920 and his sons Arthur, Josiah and Charles took it over and ran it for the next 48 years. By World War II they had 40 people turning out three million pounds of mince meat a year - the largest mince meat maker in the United States. Americans were eating a lot less mince meat by the 1960s, and in 1968 Brick's quit it altogether and started making alcoholic beverages, and the company closed in 1979. The Hamilton Uniform Company bought the old farmhouse factory in 1980, but it's been empty for years now and Preservation New Jersey put it on its endangered list in 2017 with its roof falling in. It stands in the Crosswicks Village Historic District, which is on both the National and State Registers.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe Bricks helped bring electricity to Crosswicks, too, and built a mill and an ice plant on Crosswicks Creek. They helped start the Chesterfield Township Historical Society as well - the same society that keeps the family's chopping block and spice bucket in the last two photos. And the recipe outlived the factory: at the township's 326th-anniversary Heritage Day in Crosswicks on October 18, 2014, the society was sampling and selling mince meat made from a recipe based on the authentic Brick's recipe.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003e📅 Dating It by the Recipe\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe ingredient line dates this one. Crystalline dextrose wasn't patented until 1923, and it was 1930 before the government let packers use corn sugar without special labeling - so a label proudly listing Dextrose belongs to the 1920s or '30s. And notice it says \"Sherry Flavor,\" not sherry. Food was exempt from Prohibition, and the alcohol in canned mince meat climbed past 14 percent in those years - this label only promises the flavor.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch3\u003e💣 Crosswicks\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eCrosswicks is an old Quaker village in Chesterfield Township, Burlington County - Quakers settled along Crosswicks Creek in 1677, and in 1775 Chesterfield's Quakers sent the New Jersey legislature its first petition to abolish slavery. And here's my favorite thing about it: on June 23, 1778, five days before the Battle of Monmouth, a cannonball hit the brick Friends Meeting House, which the Quakers had started building in 1773, during a skirmish at Crosswicks Creek. Both sides were firing cannon in the village that day. They mortared that ball right into the wall where it hit, and it's still up there on the north side, between the second-floor windows.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eA great one for a kitchen wall, a bakery, or a New Jersey history collection. You'll get one like the one shown.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003e📷 About the Last Two Photos\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThose are just for history - you get the label, not them! They're the Brick family's own things, kept today by the Chesterfield Township Historical Society in Crosswicks: the chopping block the family says Edgar made his very first mince meat on, and the green spice bucket they measured spices with. The society says the bucket still smells of spices.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cdiv class=\"relatedBlock\"\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003e🔎 More From The Vintage \u0026amp; Antique Gifts Archive\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cul\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\u003ca href=\"https:\/\/vintageantiquesgifts.com\/products\/antique-1910s-banquet-hall-mince-meat-label-large-edgar-brick-crosswicks-nj\"\u003eAntique Banquet Hall Mince Meat Label 🦁 LARGE VERSION, Edgar Brick \u0026amp; Sons Crosswicks NJ, NOS 1910s\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\u003ca href=\"https:\/\/vintageantiquesgifts.com\/products\/antique-1930s-beechwood-mince-meat-label-crosswicks-nj\"\u003eAntique Brick's Beechwood Mince Meat Label 🥧 Edgar Brick \u0026amp; Sons Crosswicks NJ NOS Pie Litho 1920s–1930s\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\u003ca href=\"https:\/\/vintageantiquesgifts.com\/products\/antique-1930s-bricks-banquet-hall-mince-meat-label-treasures\"\u003eAntique Brick's Banquet Hall Mince Meat Label 🦁 Edgar Brick \u0026amp; Sons Crosswicks NJ Tin Can Label 1920s–1930s\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003c\/ul\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Vintage and Antique Gifts","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":40769702985893,"sku":"VAG-7034816004261","price":9.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0597\/2718\/4037\/files\/il_fullxfull.3358709117_pj52.jpg?v=1785353501","url":"https:\/\/vintageantiquesgifts.com\/products\/antique-1920s-30s-buyers-special-mince-meat-label-edgar-brick-crosswicks-nj","provider":"Vintage and Antique Gifts","version":"1.0","type":"link"}