Orphicon · Trademark Registration — U.S. Patent Office, 1878

Chocolat Francais — E. Guittard’s Prepared Chocolate Trademark, 1878

A nineteenth-century trademark registration sheet with a small color label at its center. The label reads “Chocolat Francais” and “E. Guittard & Co., San Francisco.” It shows three allegorical figures, one in a helmet holding an American flag, beside a crate marked “E.G. & Co. S.F.,” with ships on a bay behind them. Gold medallions in the upper corners read “Highest” and “Premium,” and cherubs sit in the lower corners. Printed headings and handwritten signatures surround the label. — Trademark registration for Chocolat Francais prepared chocolate, E. Guittard & Co., San Francisco, registered December 3, 1878. The color label sets three allegorical figures against a bay of ships, between two medallions claiming honors for “best chocolate,” one from the Mechanics’ Institute. It was registered ten years after Guittard opened on Sansome Street, and two months before the firm’s Java coffee trademark.

Trademark registration by E. Guittard for Chocolat Francais brand Prepared Chocolate, 1878.

Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, TRADEMARKS, no. 6858.

No known restrictions on publication. https://www.loc.gov/item/2022668943/

Public-domain archival document, 1878. Reproduced as a historical record in editorial and archival context. E. Guittard and Guittard Chocolate Company are marks of a company still trading; no endorsement, affiliation, or connection is claimed or implied.

The reverse sheet: a black-and-white line drawing of the same Chocolat Francais label, mounted on a tan registration form, with handwritten signatures below and a red stamp reading “Draftsman” in the corner. — Trademark registration for Chocolat Francais prepared chocolate, E. Guittard & Co., San Francisco, registered December 3, 1878. The color label sets three allegorical figures against a bay of ships, between two medallions claiming honors for “best chocolate,” one from the Mechanics’ Institute. It was registered ten years after Guittard opened on Sansome Street, and two months before the firm’s Java coffee trademark.

Trademark registration by E. Guittard for Chocolat Francais brand Prepared Chocolate, 1878.

Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, TRADEMARKS, no. 6858.

No known restrictions on publication. https://www.loc.gov/item/2022668943/

Public-domain archival document, 1878. Reproduced as a historical record in editorial and archival context. E. Guittard and Guittard Chocolate Company are marks of a company still trading; no endorsement, affiliation, or connection is claimed or implied.

Object Identification

What it is: U.S. trademark registration, No. 6,858 — one item on two sheets. The front is the Patent Office form with the color label mounted on it. The back is a monochrome line rendering of the same label on a matching form.
Mark: Chocolat Francais — prepared chocolate. Patent Office category: Beverages.
Registrant: Etienne Guittard, proprietor, E. Guittard & Co., Nos. 405 & 407 Sansome Street, San Francisco. Signed Etienne Guittard, Proprietor, by his attorney, Jos. J. Stewart; witnessed by George C. Stewart and James B. Stewart.
Dates: registered December 3, 1878. A handwritten line at the foot reads Nov. 26, 1878, after a word not read with certainty.
Printer: a very small line on the label, read as Lith. Britton, Rey & Co. S.F. — likely, not certain.
Size: sheet 26 × 39 cm.
Held by: Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division · TRADEMARKS, no. 6858 [P&P] · LCCN 2022668943 · LC-DIG-trmk-1t06858 (front), LC-DIG-trmk-2t06858 (back).

Visible on the label:

Center: under an arch, a helmeted figure holding the United States flag; a seated figure gesturing toward the water; a figure in a feathered headdress resting on a crate marked “E.G. & Co. S.F.”; a bear at their feet. Behind them, a bay with a sailing ship and a steamship, hills, and a steam locomotive.
Medallions: Industrial Exhibition — Highest — Best Chocolate (left) · Mechanics’ Institute — Premium — Best Chocolate (right).
Lower corners: cherubs beside large gold discs.
Lettering: Chocolat Francais · E. Guittard & Co., San Francisco · Nos. 405 & 407 Sansome St.
No directions, ingredients or price.
Clerks’ marks on the front: a stamp, Trade Mark / Beverages; “Beverages” in blue pencil; 9605 / 306; 6858; and in the margin, Etienne Guittard, Trade Mark for Prepared Chocolate.
The back: a diagonal red stamp, Draftsman; faint reversed lettering showing through the paper.

Historical Context

Guittard’s first decade. Guittard’s own history records that Etienne Guittard, from Tournus, France, opened on Sansome Street in 1868, selling coffee, tea and spices alongside chocolate. This registration comes ten years later, at the same address as the firm’s Java coffee trademark of February 1879 (No. 6,991).
The Mechanics’ Institute. Founded in San Francisco in 1854 by builders, artisans and engineers, the Institute held thirty-one Industrial Fairs between 1857 and 1899 to promote locally made goods. The label’s medallions name an “Industrial Exhibition” and the “Mechanics’ Institute”; which fair and which year are not established here.
Recorded as a beverage. The Patent Office filed the mark under Beverages, not confectionery.
The registration law. Like the Java coffee mark, it was registered under the federal trademark law of 1870, which the U.S. Supreme Court held beyond Congress’s power in the Trade-Mark Cases later in 1879.

Curatorial Interpretation

The brand is French; the picture is San Francisco. A French-born maker sells Chocolat Francais from a scene of his adopted city — ships on the bay, a locomotive, a bear, and a crate stencilled with his firm’s San Francisco initials. The same helmeted figure, feathered figure, crate and bear appear on Guittard’s Java coffee label two months later, which suggests an emblem the firm used across its goods. The medallions borrow the standing of a civic exhibition to vouch for a business ten years old. And the record keeps two versions of one label: the color design a customer would have seen, and the Patent Office’s line copy, stamped Draftsman.

From The Palimpsest

Beyond Chocolate: Guittard’s Coffee Years

Both registrations, read together — and why a San Francisco chocolate house also sold coffee.

Read the Essay

What Remains Open

The medallions: which exhibition, which year, which award. The Mechanics’ Institute exhibition reports could settle it.
The printer’s line: Britton, Rey & Co. is probable, not certain.
The attorney’s initial: Jos. J. here, read as Jos. G. on No. 6,991. Probably the same man; the 6,991 record keeps its reading until checked again.
The handwritten word before Nov. 26, 1878 on both sheets.
The “Draftsman” stamp — what it meant in Patent Office practice.

Related Material

The companion registration

Chartres Old Gov’t Java — E. Guittard’s Coffee Trademark, 1879

The coffee mark registered nine weeks later, carrying the same emblem.

How This Work Is Made

A Note on AI, Authorship, and Creative Practice

Artificial intelligence is an active part of how I create The Palimpsest and Nostalgic Confections. I use it deliberately across research, conversation, drafting, editing, technical production, and visual development.

The ideas do not begin with AI. They begin with lived experience, memory, archival material, observation, and more than four decades spent inside the confectionery craft. I determine what deserves attention, what the work is trying to say, and what should remain when the process is complete.

AI often helps carry those beginnings much further than a conventional tool would. It may help me develop an argument, structure an essay, find clearer language, challenge an assumption, or bring a piece close to its final form. I do not claim that every published sentence was typed by me alone.

I do claim responsibility for every piece published under my name.

I guide the work, question it, revise it, reject what is false or misplaced, and decide when it accurately represents my knowledge and intent. The final authorship rests with me because the experience, direction, judgment, and accountability are mine. AI contributes to the making; it does not supply the life from which the work comes.

This distinction matters to me. Transparency should explain more than whether a tool was present. It should help readers understand what the tool did, what the human brought, and who remains answerable for the result.

AI-assisted visual works are identified as such, and material factual claims are reviewed against available sources. My practices will continue to develop as the technology, standards, and public conversation evolve.

I am still learning to write, just as I am still learning what these tools make possible. I do not see that as a contradiction. Craft has always involved learning how to work responsibly with the materials at hand.

This project remains human-led, consciously made, and openly shared.

Chocolat Francais — E. Guittard’s Prepared Chocolate Trademark, 1878

Object Identification

Historical Context

Curatorial Interpretation

What Remains Open

Related Material

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