Trade card lithographs from an 1884 to 1906
by Fred
H. Keller,
Retrospect,
Living Sussex Sun, Posted: Feb. 9, 2010
12:06 p.m.
The Sussex-Lisbon Area Historical Society is
remounting a feature on trade card lithographs
from an 1884 to 1906 Ada Weaver scrapbook. The
impressive 46-page scrapbook contains 169 items.
The state-of-the-art lithographic trade cards
were given out by merchants and manufacturers to
promote their products. The glitzy colors became
a collectable after the Civil War until around
World War I.
Ada Weaver was the daughter of Civil War
Union Soldier and Lisbon pioneer, Alfred Weaver,
(1839-1924), and his pioneer wife, Sarah Ann
Howard.
Today, in Sussex there is a Weaver Street and
a Melinda Weaver Park (great aunt of Ada).
In Ada's book are five examples of trade
cards that were issued by manufacturing
companies that sold products at the
Cooling-Templeton General Store in old four
corners Sussex - Maple and Main.
Richard Cooling, one of the original Sussex
residents, started a black smith shop where Paul
Cain's Service Station is today. Cooling later
additionally developed a General Store on the
adjacent double lot to the east. On these two
lots, on the southeast corner of Maple and Main,
an 1873 property map shows no less than six
buildings.
Richard had a daughter, Esther, and in
September of 1886, she married James Templeton
and he took over the Cooling General Store and
became post master of Sussex in 1867 under his
new father-in-law until he fully took over the
reins of the postmastership of Sussex in 1878.
It was probably while he was proprietor of
the old Cooling General Store and Sussex Post
Master that he carried lithographed trade cards
and that Ada Weaver had inherited these five
Templeton trade cards that had added
inscriptions of "James Templeton, Sussex,
Waukesha Co Wisconsin." Three of the five are
numbered from a series, #12, #14 and #16. One
trade card advertises Dr. Jayne's Expectorant
cough syrup while another is for a medicine for
croup or whooping cough.
One specific cough syrup, "Dr. J.C. Ayer's
Cherry Pectorial," has a catch phrase that it
cures, "sore throat, colds, coughs, hoarseness,
loss of voice and influenza."
Templeton maintained the Cooling General
Store until 1887, when he saw took the
opportunity to build an elevator/feed mill in
close proximity to the Wisconsin Central
Railroad.
The elevator/feed mill was next to the tracks
and nearby a General Store where Siego's
Japanese Restaurant is today. However, because
he has Sussex on the back side of these five
trading cards, Ada Weaver, probably got them in
the period of 1884-86 back in the four corners
ex-Cooling General Store and thus they are
roughly 124 years old. He would have had
"Templeton" on his General Store trade cards if
it was his new store in 1887 in the eastern part
of modern Sussex.
Templeton died in September of 1924 just when
Sussex was annexing old Templeton in a
consolidation and incorporation of Sussex into
one village.
Today, James Templeton a powerful political
being in old Lisbon/Sussex/Templeton has
Templeton Middle School named after him.
He is buried at Prairie Home Cemetery in the
City of Waukesha.
