Photograph from the collection of Mrs. Orvetta Palmateer that shows the spring house as it looked in May 1905 as a stove store. The building also was used as a confectionary store and a newsstand. The spring was capped off approximately in 1932. The building is also no longer there.

In Tucker’s "Collector’s Guide to Saratoga-Type Mineral Water Bottles" it is listed as N-19: Lithia Mineral Spring Co. (arch)/Gloversville.”  It is only known to come in aqua and pint size.  In the many years that Jim & I have been collecting, we can only account for less than a dozen examples and some of those are damaged.

The only direct knowledge we could find on this is from a copy of an old brochure advertising “Gloversville Lithian Spring Co. Gloversville, Fulton County, NY.”  According to this, the spring was discovered in April of 1872 and was located in the then village (now the city) of Gloversville, NY.  More specifically it was located near the current intersection of Cayadutta St. & Main St. in the city.  The brochure goes on to state, “The Spring originates in the black shale rock, a portion of the same formation in which the Saratogas waters are found.  The Gloversville Lithian Water is perfectly free from earthy sediment and impurities, a quality which very seldom belong to mineral waters and which renders them innocuous to a sensitive physique, and more useful in dissolving the superfluous salts of the system.”  They certainly were very eloquent writers in those days!

Very scarce aqua pint Lithia Mineral Spring co. Gloversville Bottle

Lithia & Lithian were most certainly derived from Lithium and the Greek word “Lithos” meaning “stone.”  Lithia Water was well promoted in the 19th century as medicinal cure-all.  And why not?  It was cheaper than making a preparation and it flowed freely from the ground.  Lithia water was very popular throughout the United States with companies such as “Buffalo Lithia Water” from Virginia, The Lithia Spring Co. of Atlanta Ga., and of course Saratoga boasted of several Lithia springs.  The popularity of these springs were so great that usually a hotel or housing facility was constructed nearby so visitors could receive “treatments” of the waters.  In Gloversville, the Alvord House was situated nearby.  In a newspaper ad of a November 1885, the Alvord House stressed the importance of its location to the mineral spring.  It appears that they only bottled the water for consumption, as there are no references that we can find for bathhouses or inhalation buildings.

Gloversville’s most prominent businesses revolved around the leather and glove factories.  There is reference made that several of these factories would send for the medicinal water and it was used liberally by the employees.  According to a July 1952 Gloversville newspaper article, the property where the spring was located was on the old Gregory estate.  The spring provided a living for a man named John Sturn.  There is also reference to a Mrs. Evelyn Dollar who sold the waters as a sideline.  (Her husband George was a cabinet maker).

It appears that the Spring Water business was fairly short lived or at least never flourished with the same success of some of its neighboring areas in Saratoga, Sharon and Richfield Springs.  It appears that even though the spring was still flowing, any advertising and major marketing attempts ceased in and about the late 1880’s.  The spring house was then used to house several different businesses.  It was a post office and headquarters to Andrew Hanson & Son, seller of stoves.