Meet Fred DeCarlo, the new FOHBC Northeast Region Director

Fred DeCarlo was born and grew up in Utica, New York. He is currently a firefighter/EMT with the City of Utica Fire Department and has been with them for 20 years. He is married to his wife of 15 years, Curry McMahon-DeCarlo and they have two children together. His bottle interest began over 20 years ago but really picked up steam in the last five years. He collects bottles from Utica, New York and, does research on them as he loves local history. He recently started a website Utica Bottle Directory dedicated to Utica bottles. He is vice president of Mohawk Valley Antique Bottle Club and also co-editor of their newsletter. He is also am an avid privy digger, dump digger and, metal detectorist. Exploring and researching are his favorite past times.

I wanted to share a photo of my two children who are officially novice bottle diggers even though their attention span is about 20 minutes. I brought them out over the weekend and unfortunately, we did not dig anything noteworthy but we had a ball. This is my son Freddy and daughter Scarlett. – Fred DeCarlo

New FOHBC Board member, Fred DeCarlo send the attached pics and copy, “I thought you may like this. I dug this in a privy in Utica last summer. I believe the only known example in this large size standing at 9 1/4” tall. Ponds Extract open pontil. Theron Pond was from Utica and started this medicine originally called “Golden Treasure” in 1846. He died in 1849 and his biggest investor renamed the product after him. Ponds Extract was a process of steeping witch hazel. Theron learned of this from an Oneida Indian Medicine Man. One of the first nationally sold products that is still in existence. I attached a few photos.