Hulbert Harrington Warner

Hulbert Harrington Warner (1842–1923) was a Rochester, New York businessman and philanthropist who made his fortune from the sales of patent medicine.

In 1870, Warner moved to Rochester and entered into the first business that would make him a millionaire, selling fire- and burglar-proof safes.

The H. H. Warner Building became the centerpiece of his medicine production and turned out an estimated 7,000 US gallons (26,000 L) of Safe Cure per day.

It also served as the headquarters for his promotional department, which published an untold number of almanac and advertising circulars distributed with his medicines to local druggists and grocers.

Unlike his Safe Cures, these products appeared in amber bottles with three slanted panels with the name of the particular remedy embossed.

The bottles were in red, white, blue, and yellow boxes that featured the image of a log cabin viewed from a window.

Warner realized that the nation was in a head-long race for expansion westward and his marketing pitch appealed to the American desire for self-reliance.

Based upon his success in marketing his Safe Cure products in the United States, Warner quickly decided to expand his operation internationally.

This offer was of great help to the young astronomer Edward Emerson Barnard, who claimed eight such awards and used the proceeds to set himself and his new wife up in a newly built house in Nashville, Tennessee.

When the Panic of 1893 hit, Warner was unable to generate additional capital through stock sales, forcing him into bankruptcy.

After failing in Rochester, Warner lived for a time in New York City, then moved to Philadelphia, where he may have attempted to start a new patent medicine business, although this is unconfirmed.

He ultimately landed in Minneapolis, where he promoted the Nuera Manufacturing Co., also known as Neura Remedy Co., with the help of his common-law wife Christina de Martinez.

Warner died in January, 1923, and is buried alongside his first wife, Martha, in Lakeview Cemetery in Skaneateles, NY.

Warner's Safe Kidney and Liver Cure amber bottle