On January 27, 1863 Augustus A. Bennett received Letters Patent No 37,485 for an  "Improvement In Cartridge-Boxes".  On April 14, 1863 Mr Bennett received Reissue No 1,451 for a modification of the Cartridge-Boxes described in Letters Patent No 37,485 to consist of "a metallic or other box".  The modification became the Civil War Era Cartridge Box known as the Kittredge Box.

B. Kittredge & Co of Cincinnati, Ohio was a merchant who was the principal agent for the Frank Wesson rifle, a breachloading metallic cartridge firing competitor to the Henry Rifle, see:The Historic Henry Rifle by Wiley Sword, p15.  Apparantly Kitredge had an agreement with Bennett to manufacture and sell the Cartridge Boxes produced under the Bennett Patents as an accessory to the Wesson rifle.  Since Kittredge's name is stamped on the box Bennett's name was lost to history.  The 44 Henry cartridge, also metallic, was also adaptable to the Kittredge Box and was used as an accessory to the Henry Rifle.  The irony in the latter association, as noted in Wiley Sword's book, is the fact that Oliver Winchester, principal stockholder in the New Haven Arms Company that produced the Henry Rifle, refused to sell Henrys to Kittredge because of his promotion of  the Wesson Rifle.  History is just full of ironies!

Well that brings us to the present day.  Kittredge Boxes were produced in brass and copper and are highly sought after.  Metallic cartridges were in their infancy during the Civil War so any container intended to carry them was at least as novel as the contents. You can find the Kittredge Box and its contemporaries in Warman's Civil War Collectibles by John Graf at page 34.

timbuk2002

P.S. The Kittredge Token pictured above was used as a medium of exchange during the Civil War due to the shortage of U.S. coinage.