Chapter 29- Soap, Suds and Statesmanship (1766)
John had maintained frequent and thoughtful correspondence with Dr. Benjamin Rush, a man whose intellect burned as brightly as any John had known in his own time. Their letters grew into a lively exchange of theories and experiments, medical philosophies and observations on human nature. In Rush, John had found more than a colleague—he had found a kindred spirit, a man unafraid to question accepted truths in pursuit of deeper understanding.
What had begun as a promising career for the young doctor had, under John's careful influence, begun to ascend into something remarkable. While John was cautious not to reveal too much, he shared select fragments of 21st-century medical knowledge, cloaking them in the language of contemporary theory. Simple hygiene practices, rudimentary germ theory, and even improved surgical techniques were offered as "speculative notions." The results were striking. Mortality rates among Rush's patients dropped significantly, and in a city where death often loomed as a daily visitor, that alone earned Rush a growing reputation as one of Philadelphia's finest physicians.
When not engaged in such scientific dialogues or buried in his studies, John turned his restless mind to an unexpected pursuit of luxury goods, namely the creation of soaps and perfumes. His memories of global powerhouses like Chanel and Dior, empires built on scent, elegance, and illusion reminded him how entire industries could flourish on vanity alone. But this endeavor held more than the promise of profit.
He remembered well the brutal statistics of military history: far more men perished from disease than from bullets or blades. Until the 20th century, it had been so in nearly every major conflict. The Revolutionary War would prove no different. Dysentery, typhus, and cholera had turned many encampments into charnel grounds. With time, John hoped to gain rank within the Continental Army, and with it, the authority to impose strict standards of cleanliness and hygiene—principles that might save hundreds, perhaps thousands, of lives. But to do so, he would first need to demonstrate the effectiveness and appeal of those very standards.
Soap-making, widely seen as a domestic chore reserved for farmers' wives and homesteaders, had only just begun to emerge as a cottage industry in urban centers. European imports had grown scarce and expensive due to trade disruptions and increasing political tension, creating a void in the market. The wealthy still desired finery—perhaps now more than ever, to distinguish themselves in a land that was redefining its own class structure. John saw an opportunity.
His first experiments, however, were disheartening. Traditional soap-making relied on lye—a volatile and dangerous substance to work with. The process was slow, unpredictable, and left him with burns on his forearm and an aching frustration. He realized quickly that common soap would not distinguish his work. If he was to draw the attention—and the coin—of the upper class, his product needed to be rarer, cleaner, better.
He settled on Castile soap. Liquid, gentle, and high in quality, it was made from potash, neutral oils, water, and glycerin. The ingredients, mostly, were within reach: potash was abundant thanks to the ash from wood-burning stoves, and peanut oil could be pressed easily from the seasonal crop. And clean water was plentiful from the nearby river. Glycerin, however, was a different matter. Though it would not be "discovered" until 1779 by a Swedish chemist, John knew it well—and knew how to make it.
One warm evening, with the scent of summer lilac hanging in the air and crickets chirping in the fields beyond, John retreated to a shed-turned-laboratory behind the house. There, with practiced hands, he combined neutral oil with litharge, lead monoxide, and applied gentle heat. Hours passed before the mixture separated, but eventually, from the heavy residue, he extracted several gallons of glycerin: thick, faintly sweet, and clear. He stored the yield in clay vessels and retired for the night, exhausted but quietly triumphant.
The next morning, he set to work again, this time attempting to scent and color the soap. Dozens of experiments later, using herbs, flowers, and resins from the little foraging he was able to do in the surrounding forests, he succeeded in producing a batch that lathered richly, cleaned thoroughly, and left the skin soft with a trace of floral sweetness. Encouraged, he pushed further adding additional oils and adjusting the mixture's composition to create a rudimentary shampoo. In his estimation, it was better than anything available in the colonies, and perhaps even Europe.
That evening, he offered the finished product to his mother. Whom always supportive of her son's unusual endeavors,tested it that night without hesitation. The following morning, she emerged from her room with a broad smile, her skin smooth, her hair shining with a subtle luster, and a faint, pleasant scent trailing behind her.
Later that day, John walked her through the process. Martha listened carefully, occasionally nodding, her mind already turning over possibilities. Through her many correspondences and social ties, she could reach the drawing rooms and parlors of influential women in New York, Philadelphia, and several smaller cities along the coast. But she offered one immediate caution.
While she had never shared the same passion for economics as her son or her father William, Martha had received a thorough education in it all the same. Her true brilliance, however, lay in reading people. She could enter a room and intuit who held power, who desired attention, and who could be influenced with a word or a glance. It was this social intelligence that made her an asset at any gathering—and a formidable ally in business.
She explained that the success of John's creation would depend not just on its quality, but on the illusion it sold. For the elite, soap must not merely cleanse—it must confer status. It must whisper luxury. To that end, she recommended creating multiple product tiers: an elegant yet accessible version for the growing middle class, and an exclusive, indulgent line for the wealthy. Give the rich something others cannot have, she said, and they will pay anything to possess it.
"Prestige," she told him, "is the one fragrance that never fades."
John had mulled over this for a while and spent much of the afternoon testing small batches of smells and fragrances. Extracts from charred cedar and birch tar gave the men's soaps an earthy, robust profile, while lavender, chamomile, and wild rose scented the women's varieties with delicate grace. He had nearly a dozen blends laid out across the worktable, their hues ranging from ivory cream to deep amber. His mother, ever the discerning judge, helped him sort the results into tiers. There was the basic line—unscented or lightly infused for general use. Then came the mid-tier, using more accessible herbs like rosemary, mint, and lemon balm, easily grown in their own garden. Finally, the exclusive collection: rare and refined, laced with forest botanicals and secret ingredients John had either discovered or invented. These he cloaked in mystery, giving them exotic names and spinning stories about their origins—stories that, in a marketplace driven by prestige, might one day carry more weight than the products themselves.
Yet one obstacle remained, sourcing. His experiments meant nothing without the means to recreate them at scale. Many of the most effective aromatics he'd used were impossible to grow in quantity or were found only in deep woodland. And while he could scout the local countryside, what he truly needed was access to the forests beyond, the ones untouched by settlement, mapped only by memory and tradition.
That evening, while the sky turned bronze behind the trees and the candles in the windows flickered to life, John stepped into the study, where the scent of pipe tobacco and old paper hung like an invisible fog. His grandfather, William Carpenter, was seated in his usual chair, a half-drained mug of cider sitting next to a pile of documents., a smile tugging at his lips as he scanned over them..
"You look like a man with a scheme," William said, giving John a glance. "And those eyes tell me I'm going to be involved in it."
John grinned and took a seat. "Guilty on both counts. I have a favor to ask, concerning an old friend of yours. Teyohate."
At that, William chuckled, the sound warm and rolling. "Teyohate! Now there's a name I haven't heard in a year or two. He's still alive, I'd wager. Tougher than steel and twice as sharp. What's your angle, lad?"
"I need his help. I'm working on a line of luxury soaps and perfumes, and some of the ingredients I need, specific herbs, roots, flowers, are found only in the deep woods. The kind of places only the natives know well. I was hoping you might reach out to him, maybe ask if there's a way we could partner with the confederacy, they are different from many of the other tribes. I'd pay fair prices for anything they're willing to gather. And more than that, I'd like to do it properly, build something respectful."
William leaned back, the chair creaking beneath his frame. His eyes twinkled with amusement and a glint of pride. "Well, now. You do surprise me, John. Most folks your age wouldn't know the Iroquois from a patch of corn. But you're right to ask."
He set his mug down and steepled his fingers. "The Iroquois Confederacy, what they call the Haudenosaunee—are no mere collection of tribes. They're a league of nations. Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga, Seneca, and more recently the Tuscarora too. Six Nations, bound by a Great Law older than any charter in this land. They have a council, laws, customs, all older and more orderly than anything you'll find in Parliament, I'll tell you that."
John nodded. "That's why I want to go through the right channels. Teyohate might be able to open the door. And if we show good faith, maybe something lasting can come of it."
William rubbed his chin, then gave a broad, gap-toothed grin. "I always said you'd find trouble in clever ways. But I like this kind of trouble. Teyohate was Mohawk, and a man of no small importance. A sachem's cousin, if I recall. We met during my years of adventure along the Mohawk River. We drank, argued philosophy, his was better than mine, truth be told, and once spent a whole night debating whether birds dream."
He rose from his chair with a groan and shuffled over to the writing desk. "I'll pen him a letter. If he remembers this old fool fondly, he might agree to meet you. But you mind your manners, John. The Haudenosaunee aren't a people to be charmed with coin and compliments. You'll need honesty, and patience. Maybe a gift or two, something from your soap stock wouldn't hurt, show them why you want to work."
John smiled, grateful. "Thank you, Grandfather. I'll pack a few samples. And I'll take whatever advice you're willing to give."
William winked. "First bit of advice? Don't wear those stiff boots of yours. You'll never keep pace in the woods."
John chuckled quietly to himself as he stepped into his bedchambers, the door creaking shut behind him. He changed into his nightclothes, the linen soft against his skin, and moved toward the window. The moon hung high over the trees, casting silver across the fields beyond. For a long moment, he stood there, lost in thought.
"This land… it doesn't have to follow the same bloody path," he mused silently. "The way my old country treated the native peoples—it was shameful. If I can earn the trust of the Iroquois, build something real with them… maybe, just maybe, history doesn't have to repeat itself."