Then and Now: A Long, Longtime Downtown Merchant

Smith's Drug Store has served customers in downtown Wakefield for well over a century - and this bottle found recently on eBay provides some insight into just how long of a time that is. 

The sellers estimate that this four-ounce bottle is from the 1940s, although the label seems to make it look a bit older than that - even with a black plastic twist-on cap. Whenever this bottle of glycerine was used, Francis J. Smith was the proprietor of the drug store at that point. 

The label calls the glycerine "a vehicle for certain medicine agents, also used in the preparation of lotions." The bottle has an asking price of $18.50.