Jones Drug Store, ca. 1909

The original photograph is from the collection of John Shannon Viccellio. Research assistance is provided by Langhorne Jones, Jr.

When this photograph was reproduced in a 1976 Bicentennial issue of the Chatham Star-Tribune, editor Preston Moses wrote the following description:

Old-timers recall when Chatham Pharmacy was the drug center of the county. This picture was made before Claude Swanson's safe was erected on a cement block — around 1910. In the photo: Timothy Cooper, who later became a professor in a northern college, Dr. John M. Jones. Dr. W. R. Parrish (and Mayor), Hugh Shepherd, Jr., and Glen B. Updike.

Langhorne Jones, Jr., grandson of Dr. John Jones, further adds that after the safe was erected on the concrete block the drug store advertised as being on the “safe side of the street.”

Swanson's safe had been pushed out of an upstairs window at this location in order to save it from a fire.

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