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I was lucky to pick up this great whiskey bottle as the local collectors in Macon believed it to be a fantasy item, evidently because none of the bottle diggers had found another specimen.  I’m not a bottle digger but have developed a small collection of jugs and bottles and  I have a good eye, if I do say so.  This bottle was first introduced on the Vintage Macon Georgia Facebook by a woman who had found it in the rubble of a building which belonged to her family.  It was greeted with great enthusiasm, including some comments which were removed due to offers to buy, which is not allowed on the site.  You can read this thread by using the search function-Fort Hawkins.  The thread contains some useful information by two of the members which proves that such a brand existed.

I bought the bottle at a local antique store and though I feared it might be a fantasy item, I purchased it.  Later, I took it to the local flea market to show it to someone, who is recognized as a great picker and someone who knows about many things.  It turned out that he had seen the Facebook postings and he and the other Macon collectors had declared it bogus.  We argued a bit with him telling me why he felt that way, basically due to the fact that none of the diggers had found such a bottle.  He did give me the useful information of the Facebook posting so I was able to contact the original owner.  I will provide our interaction to the buyer but the following is the provenience:

"I found the bottle among some rubble in an old warehouse.  The warehouse was originally Macon Grocery built in the late 1800‘s located on the corner of Seventh St. and Mulberry.  The section of the warehouse where I found it was the old stable area where the houses that pulled the carts thru town were kept... (more info which will be provided)  My father owned this building and I sold it several months ago at an estate auction.  I put the bottle in the tag sale.”  She went on the say she didn’t price it and did not know what it sold for.  

I was told  that the owner of the antique booth had bought it for her bottle collector boyfriend who decided it was a fantasy piece.   Because I’m stubborn and had a good feeling about it, I took it to the Civil War show in Dalton, where I knew I could show it to several bottle collectors.  I showed it to three people, two of the top Tennessee bottle collectors who declared it to be genuine.  To put the cherry on the top, I showed it to Johnny Mack Nickels, a life long Maconite and recognised as an expert on all things Macon.  Johnny Mack said it was definitely a 1880's period bottle with acid etching by a skillful partisan of the period. 

The picture of the bottle on Facebook is better than mine as I had to use my scanner due to problems uploading from my camera.