When researching local history you have to remember that these were real people. They led lives of either great or modest accomplishment. Only a few are remembered a century later with surviving companies bearing their name. Most fade to obscurity. Some are now physically represented only by a few yellowing scraps of paper. Or perhaps by a single scrap.
Here is the remains of an advertising trade card. The front.
And the back. Notice that this was once a rectangular card which obviously had more on the back and had some sort of background picture for the owl. Clearly it was cut out by somebody, perhaps a child, for a scrap book. Had they not liked owls J.A. Cobban might have been completely lost beyond a few newspaper entries and census listings.
The faint script over stamped reads: "FARR BROTHERS DEALERS IN DRUGS CHEMICALS Stationary and etc. NORTH EAU CLAIRE WIS.
So, what scraps of history can we assemble to remember J.A. Cobban and his patent medicine business?
Cobban is a fairly common name in the early history of our area, so I'm not sure which family this Cobban came from. For that matter I was not able to even figure out what the initials J.A. stand for. But I think he might be the son of a W.S. Cobban who in the 1880's ran a dry goods store....and was also part owner of the Eau Claire News where J.A.Cobban's products got frequent positive mention! Oh, and there were print ads. Here's one that recovers the missing text from the back of the trade card.
If J.A. was part of a commercial family he seems to have struck out on his own early. Also to have changed lines often.
In 1874 we read: "To the Ladies. J.A. Cobb of Eau Claire is general agent for the King Combination Iron, combining four complete irons in one..."
There must have been some sort of interlude elsewhere because the next bit of information is from 1878 when "Mr. J.A. Cobban formerly of this city is in town canvassing for a work entitled "The Temperance Reform and its Great Reformers". Whether he was pitching the book itself or the tedious, parched tongue philosophy of abstinence is hard to say. If the latter then his subsequent sales of presumably alcohol laced medicine seem a bit hypocritical!
Five years later, in 1883 he has settled in to a new line of work. "J.A. Cobban who has long been in charge of the boot and shoe department of G.B. Chapman's Store has accepted the post of Head Salesman at Culver and Ellison's". If my theory of him being related to one of the several branches of Cobbans in the retail trade are correct then perhaps he was a black sheep of the family? It would explain him working for others and not taking over the family business.
At last in 1884 we start to see ads for Cobbin's Tonic Bitters.
Farr Brothers was a drug store that operated between 1881 and 1892, which fits well.
Interestingly I can also set an end date to the patent medicine business of J.A. Cobban. A mention in January of 1888 under local news tells us that: Dr. J.A. Cobban is convalescing from an attack of lung fever". At about this time ads for the Bitters seem to stop.
There is by the way no evidence that our shoe salesman/temperance worker ever attended medical school, so the adopted honorific was probably self bestowed. But in any case his days in Eau Claire were numbered. Perhaps in ill health: "Dr. J.A. Cobban and wife who have resided in this city for the past eight years, have removed to Augusta. They take the best wishes of their many friends with them."
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