Historic Hallowell

Henry P. Clearwater was born June 13, 1879 in Hallowell and was educated at the Hallowell Classical Academy. As a boy he worked for Major John Quincy Adams Hawes, a retired Army surgeon who operated a pharmacy in downtown Hallowell. Clearwater studied under Hawes and was able to pass the now required Pharmacist's Examination.

After a brief period of employment in Bath he returned to Hallowell and opened his own business. Always interested in ways to expand his business he began to advertise a product for the relief of heart trouble which he manufactured under the name of The Heart Cure Company.

Clearwater placed advertisements in papers like the New York Times and Chicago Tribune soon created a patent medicine mail-order business that was unlike anything seen to that time. His formulations were distributed wholesale and retail throughout the country and as far away as Great Britain and Africa.

The volume of packages and circular letters sent from his Water Street location necessitated the construction of a new Post Office in Hallowell. His business at one point occupied an entire city block, employed 100 production workers, and 20 hand-copiers who addressed envelopes off-site.

Perhaps his best known product was one said to be helpful in reducing rheumatic aches and pains and joint troubles known as "Joint-Ease" and "Oint-Ease."

Dr. Clearwater's advertisements often included the following quote: I will pass this way but once! If therefore there is any Good which I may do any Happiness I may give or Gladness I can create, let me do it now, for I shall not pass this way again.

A three pill cure for Rheumatism was his most successful product, but U. S. vs Henry Clearwater (H. P. Clearwater and Pope Laboratories) resulted in the "Misbranding of Clearwater's Combination Medication" in 1942. Sales of other products declined and the business, which by that time had many imitators, was liquidated when Dr. Clearwater died in 1952.