Benjamin Brandreth (June 23, 1809 – February 18, 1880) was a pioneer in the early use of mass advertising to build consumer awareness of his product, a purgative that allegedly cured many ills by purging toxins out of the blood.

His father abandoned the family while Benjamin was young and he was raised by his mother and maternal grandfather William Brandreth, whose surname he adopted.

Brandreth created and published a wide variety of advertising material for his pills, including a 224-page tome entitled The Doctrine of Purgation, Curiosities from Ancient and Modern Literature, from Hippocrates and Other Medical Writers.

Brandreth widely distributed his books and pamphlets throughout the country as well as taking copious advertising space in newspapers.

[5] Indeed, the Brandreth pills were so well known they received mention in Edgar Allan Poe's satirical story "Some Words with a Mummy", Herman Melville's classic Moby-Dick,[6] and P. T. Barnum's book The Humbugs of the World.

[1] Historian James Harvey Young has noted that Brandreth convinced "his dupes to swallow his pills as fast and as rapidly as they would their dinner" and deluded them with "the merest twaddle of medical language that ever made the ignorant gape, or the educated cry 'bah!

'"[9] A prominent businessman, Brandreth was among the original founders and was the first President of the Westchester County Savings Bank in Tarrytown, NY.

[2]The impact Brandreth had on the local community of Sing Sing was noted by the account in The New York Times which stated that at the time of his death: …flags have been hung at half-mast there and on Saturday all the business places of the village, including the bank, Post Office, Soldiers' monument, and several hotels, together with innumberable private dwellings, we draped in mourning.

Conner sold the pill and plaster business in the 1960s thus ending Brandreth's medical legacy, but continued making the Havahart traps.

The remaining 34 employees in Ossining were offered jobs in Pennsylvania with the new owner, but many retired, thus ending the 142-year legacy of Brandreth's enterprise.