An English-born American John Matthews sailed over the briny Atlantic waters to find his fortune with soda water in the United States. The utmost soda fountain development at the time of his arrival in 1832 was occurring in New York City.
Taverns, ins and pubs were very plentiful across the nation, serving rum, beer, and all manner of libations, but for the first time, John Matthews offered them some competition with his soda fountain. Soon he set up shop with small scale operation where he began to manufacture carbonating machinery and sell soda water to local retailers and drug stores. He also sold them full-sized soda fountains.
Matthews paved the way for the soda fountain by coming up with a reliable method for creating carbonated water. He realized that he could use marble chips to make soda water, and that there was an ample supply to the many construction projects taking place in New York. In his process, carbonic acid gas was formed by mixing sulphuric acid with marble chips.
By the end of the century, there were several strong competitors to Matthews entered the soda fountain market: John Lippincott of Philadelphia; A. D. Puffer of Boston; and James W. Tufts of Somerville, Massachusetts.
In 1891, Tuft’s Arctic Soda Fountain Company merged with John Matthews of New York, A. D. Puffer and Sons of Boston, and Charles Lippincott of Philadelphia to become the American Soda Fountain Company with James W. Tufts as the company’s president.
John Matthews (1808–1870): Father Of The Soda Fountain
