Author name: Jack Sullivan

 At a pivotal time in Hawaiian history, four brothers named Macfarlane used their liquor company as a springboard to wealth and influence with the native Hawaiian royalty.  Their support for the “status quo” could not stem the tide of change, however, that would make the islands an American territory.  A red amber bottle of their whiskey serves as to remind us of their lives and contributions.

The Macfarlane brothers were sons of Henry Richard (Scottish) and Eliza (English) Macfarlane, a couple who met in and married in New Zealand before becoming early settlers of Hawaii, arriving in the islands in 1846.  All but one of their children were born there.   George W. Macfarlane, shown here, would launch the family into the liquor trade in 1877 by joining a partnership with W. L. Green, Hawaiian Minister of Finance, to create the firm of Green, MacFarlane & Co.  Two years later George bought out Green and with his brother Henry R. Macfarlane started the firm of G.W. Macfarlane & Co.  Although advertised as “shipping, commission and general wholesale merchants,” the principal product was liquor.

By 1892, George had moved on, becoming the manager of the original Royal Hawaiian Hotel in Honolulu.  This early luxury hotel on Oahu, below, became a favorite “watering hole” for native Hawaiian royalty, including the heir apparent to the monarchy, Prince Kalakaua.  A man with a taste for strong drink, the prince was well accommodated at Macfarlane’s hotel.  When he became king, Kalakaua appointed George to his personal staff as a colonel, left, and subsequently as a privy councilor, member of the House of Nobles, and ultimately king’s chamberlain.

As chamberlain, George was responsible representing the king to the national cabinet and for floating bonds for Hawaiian projects on the London exchange amounting to millions.  The bonds advanced government needs, sugar interests and the Hawaiian Street Railroad Company.  In 1899, he organized the first American Bank of Hawaii with help from British and American financing.  When King Kalakaua made a ‘round the world’ trip, George Macfarlane was close by his side, as shown here in a photograph.

Meanwhile Henry Macfarlane was running the family business, now strictly involved with alcohol-related sales and called Macfarlane & Company.  Henry appears to be the family member who was responsible for the amber whiskeys with the Macfarlane logo on the front.  As shown below they came in varying shades of amber.

By 1896, Henry had been joined by younger brothers Clarence W. Macfarlane and Edward C. Macfarlane.  Edward was listed as vice president; Clarence as a salesman and an agent for “Dr. Pottie’s Horse Medicine.”   After five years with Macfarlane & Co. Clarence moved on from liquor sales and horse remedies to running an electric light company.  He continued to be involved in family businesses that had evolved into saloons and hotels, including the Seaside Hotel that for a time Clarence managed.

Although recognized as a businessman, Clarence, shown here, became famous in Hawaii as a sportsman, organizing the first trans-Pacific yacht race.  In 1906  he took his yacht, “La Paloma” to the Pacific Coast, arriving in San Francisco a few days after the earthquake and fire. The trip to the coast was made in 28 days, while the return voyage, at racing speed, was accomplished in 14 days.  Today it is among the oldest of the world’s classic ocean races.  Clarence also has been credited a the first white man to master the sports of surfboarding and outrigger canoeing.  He is memorialized in the Hawaii Sports Hall of Fame.

King Kalakaua, who was an alcoholic, became very ill on an 1891 trip to the United States.  George Macfarlane was with him in San Francisco’s Palace Hotel and is said to have sat at his bedside grasping the monarch’s hand as he died.  The new queen Liliuokalani, a sister of Kalakaua, removed Macfarlane as chamberlain and appointed another to the post.  But the Macfarlanes were not left out.

In the legislative election of 1890, Edward Macfarlane ran and was successfully elected to the House of Nobles, the upper house of the Legislature of the Kingdom of Hawaii, for a four-year term. He sat in the legislative assembly of 1890 during the reign of King Kalākaua and during the 1892–93 session under Queen Liliʻuokalani.  On September 12, 1892, Edward, shown left, became the head of the so-called “Macfarlane Cabinet.”  Considered a trusted advisor by  the queen, he was appointed Minister of Finance and formed his own cabinet.  After serving a mere five weeks, on October 17 he and his colleagues were voted out by the legislature for lack of confidence.  The queen, however, continued to consider Edward a trusted advisor.

Queen Lili’uokalani sought to restore power to the monarchy by abrogating the 1887 Constitution and adopting a new one. Her proposed 1893 Constitution would have increased native Hawaiian suffrage by reducing some property requirements and eliminated voting privileges extended to European and American residents. The queen’s initiative seems to have been broadly supported by the Hawaiian population, but triggered a reaction among powerful U.S. elements that led to her ousting and an American pineapple millionaire being named governor.

In this virtually bloodless “coup d’tat,” the Macfarlanes, true to their dedication to the Hawaiian royal family, stood with the queen. In the end their influence mattered little and it is to be wondered how vociferous they were in her defense given their many business and financial interests in Hawaii.  In addition to their liquor and hotel enterprises on Oahu the Macfarlanes were involved in sugar plantations on Maui, gas and electric utilities, and imports of machinery and fire equipment.

The Macfarlane’s support for the queen apparently was not a bar to their further advancement in Hawaii.  Clarence became active in the Democratic Party.  As a result, in 1920 he was appointed by the Wilson Administration as chairman of the Hawaiian Civil Service Commission.  George continued to prosper in business.  Henry operated Macfarlane & Co. until closed in 1918 by a decree of Woodrow Wilson related to World War I needs that banned liquor in Hawaii.  He went on to be Danish Consul for the islands.

Edward’s future was less fortunate.  For many years known as one of Hawaii’s wealthiest bachelors, he was 49 years old when he met Florence Ballinger, 22, a Chicago native while she was on an extended stay in Honolulu.  They fell in love and were married in San Francisco in February 1902.  The couple then set out for a honeymoon in Europe but had only reached Chicago before Edward became very ill, diagnosed as “pleuro-pneumonia,” and died.  His body was returned to Hawaii for burial.  A newspaper report commented:  “Mrs. Macfarlane goes back to a home crowded with wedding presents which have not even been acknowledged.” 

The four Macfarlane brothers are remembered today for the important roles they played in the history of Hawaii.   Their success as liquor merchants clearly was an essential factor in their rise to prominence in both business and politics.  Their links to alcohol, however, also helped bind them to an “ancien regime” whose days of ruling on the islands were numbered.

Note:   I was drawn to the story of the Macfarlane “whiskey men” of Hawaii by seeing an embossed bottle with their company logo.   Research soon disclosed that three of the four brothers merited their own entry, with photos, in Wikipedia.  Those biographies provided essential information.  Only Henry, who ran the liquor house, is absent a picture, an omission I am hopeful some alert reader will remedy.

Foreword:  For the most part individuals involved in the liquor trade were not an introspective lot.  Presented here are exceptions in which three of them provided diary entries or letters that detailed their activities on a regular basis.  Each of the “whiskey men” chronicled here were deceased when their writings were rediscovered and believed significant enough for reprinting in book form.  This post offers a brief introduction to each.

It is likely that the world would never have heard of Joseph J. Mersman, if Dr.  Linda A. Fisher, a public health physician, had not been doing research on the 1849 St. Louis cholera epidemic and came across Mersman’s diary at the Missouri Historical Society where it had laid “undiscovered” for years.  She found the whiskey merchant’s story intriguing and eventually edited it with annotations and put it into book form, published in 2007 by the Ohio University Press.   As a result the day to day activities and thoughts of the German-born St. Louis  liquor dealer and whiskey blender became available for a wider audience.

Mersman, born in Germany and brought to the United States as a child, began working at 15 in the whiskey trade at a successful Cincinnati liquor house.  In November 1847 when he was about 23 years old he began his diary, documenting his work in the whiskey house and other aspects of his daily life.  Completing his apprenticeship and now free to strike out on his own, Mersman moved to St. Louis, Missouri, and at 25 years of age with a partner established a whiskey and tobacco business. 

He also found a wife, Claudine.  Their first child, a boy they named Joseph, was born 13 months later.  A touching photograph of mother and son is shown here.  The couple would go on to have eight children.  In his diary Mersman recorded his enjoyment of his growing family, noting that he was becoming “quite domesticated.”  In March 1855, Mersman abandoned his diary only to take it up again in 1862 after the outbreak of the Civil War.  Despite Missouri being a hotbed of Confederate sentiment and conflict,  he thrived.  Having signed loyalty oaths to the Union, he and his partner were able to obtain lucrative contracts with the Union Army to provide whiskey for the troops. 

Dr. Fisher sees Mersman’s diary as “a record of a man transforming himself from an impoverished, unschooled newcomer into a successful, skilled merchant…a path many took in the mid-nineteenth century.”  All that is true but seen from a slightly different perspective, his story also demonstrates how the liquor trade in particular hastened the economic and social rise of immigrants who understood — as Joseph Mersman clearly did — the weath to be made.

In May 1915, I did a post on Benedict Joseph (B.J.) Semmes, born into a whiskey-making Washington, D.C., family.  But it was not until he had wooed and won the love of his life, Jorantha, the daughter of a New York congressman, that with her support Semmes was able to prevail through the crisis of the Civil War and maintain a whiskey dynasty down to three generations.  Serving as a supply officer for the Confederate Army, Semmes wrote Jorantha (he called her “Eo,”) every day an account of the 1864 Battle for Atlanta. The letters lay idle at the University of North Carolina for decades until Author A.A. Hoehling unearthed them for his book, “Last Train from Atlanta.” Following are some excerpts:

July 22: “Our communications have been cut as I foretold you and this is a chance just offered to write you. Before day this morning we evacuated Atlanta but left the Army in line of battle around the city…A terrible battle is raging around the city and in fact in it.

July 25:  “The enemy continues the wanton shelling of the city….For 30 hours they shelled my Depot where our stores are issued….Gen. Hood ordered us with the train of cars a little out of the range and now I am writing in a car on the R. Road while the shells are flying over me….I am well during all these troubles and am chiefly troubled since I no longer hear from you….God bless you and pray for me.” 

July 28:  “I can only say that I am tolerably well, and love you as much as you could wish, and much more than I know how to put on paper…I send a heartfull of love to all my little ones and my relations.”

August 7:  “I have been quite unwell and very feeble but today feel much better and stronger in every way, especially since I have been to Mass for the first time since we left Dalton….I felt you were  by my side.  It was consoling to me at this time especially for I am living in danger hourly and daily.

August 12:  “After a sleepless night, [I] cannot refrain from writing to my darling Eo my regular letter.  Today my heart is very loving and my very arms yearn to press to my  heart the living, breathing form of my beloved wife….I have you constantly in my thoughts, especially in the hour of danger.”

August 25:  “For the past 48 hours the enemy has shelled us terribly….The day before a young man from Manin, Ala,,  dined with us, and two hours after dinner his leg was amputated on the same table we dined from.”

August 30: Semmes was evacuated from Atlanta by train.  As supply officer he directed military supplies by rail through a hotly contested area and was able to arrive at a safe location twelve miles north of the city.  He told his “beloved wife” to gather the children, fall on her knees and thank God for his “protection” and “preservation from a most horrible death or most shocking wounds.”   After the Confederate surrendered Semmes made his way home, rejoined Jorantha and his family, and continued his successful liquor business.

Born in New York, George Hand began keeping a diary as a Union soldier in the Far West doing garrison work.  After the war about 1872 with a partner he remained there to open a saloon in Tucson, Arizona.  Early entries of the diary apparently have been lost.  Those that exist begin in January 1875 and end in the late 1880s. In his diary Hand was starkly honest about his activities and the saloon.  For example, he documented his alcoholism with precision:   Jan. 19, 1875:  “Got up at 8 o’clock. Took one drink and was tight.  Kept drinking until 11 a.m., then went to bed full of rot and slept till 3 p.m.” Nov. 5, 1875:  “Got drunk today.” and the next day: “Got tight again. Went to a funeral.  Got tighter at night.”  Oct. 5, 1877:  “Very dull.  Drank all day and all evening.”

Hand was equally faithful in documenting his visits and payments to Tucson prostitutes:  Jan. 13, 1875: “Cruz—$5.00;”  Jan. 18, 1875:  “Unknown girl—$3.00;”  Nov. 6, 1875:  “Juana—$1.00.” Dec. 23, 1876:  “Called on Pancha a few moments—$10.”  Hand also described the raucous activity at the saloon:  May 23, 1875:  “Green Rusk got tight, had a row with John Luck and got a cut in his head from a cane.” May 29, 1875:  “Boyle hit a man in the eye for calling him a son-of-a-bitch.  Later in the evening I knocked a man down,”  Mar. 9, 1876: “Mr. Bedford, being full of liquor, made a row with old Dick.  Foster hit Bedford in the neck and put him out of doors.”

Man Right Standing at Hand’s Saloon

Interspersed among such diary jottings are some Western history gems: “March 19, 1882:  “Morgan Earp died today from a gunshot wound he received while playing billiards in Tombstone. He was shot through a window from the sidewalk.”  March 21, 1882:  “Frank Stillwell was shot all over, the worst shot-up man that I ever saw. He was found a few hundred yards from the hotel on the railroad tracks [In Tucson]. It is supposed to be the work of Doc Holliday and the Earps, but they were not found. Holliday and the Earps knew that Stillwell shot Morg Earp and they were bound to get him.”

Twenty years after Hand’s death in May 1887, The Arizona Daily Star, Tucson’s morning newspaper, began publishing entries from his diaries as a historical feature on its editorial page.  From 1917 to 1972, the saloonkeeper’s observations were printed almost daily, bringing a man who otherwise likely would have been utterly forgotten to the forefront of public attention.  As his biographer Neil Carmody has noted:  “For more than four decades, thousands of Arizonians began their day reading George Hand’s laconic [and sometimes expurgated] comments on frontier life.”   

Carmony has described the importance of Hand’s “saloon diary:”  “Most of the  pioneers who took the time to keep a diary were serious and orderly folks, not much given to humor and certainly not frank about their lives and loves.…In his diary,  George Hand captured the flavor of the ribald, fun side of frontier life, described the often violent West, and revealed the…loneliness and tedium of a life far from home and family.”

Note:  More complete vignettes on each of these “whiskey men” may be found elsewhere on this post: Joseph Mersman, May 26, 2017;  B.J. Semmes, May 11, 2015; and George Hand, April 11, 2021.

A number of years ago in a visit to Bardstown, Kentucky, I visited the Heaven Hill Distillery and took a tour.  The final stop was the end of an automated line where the filled bottles received their labels and were boxed for shipment.  That day the fifths were all labeled “Evan Williams.”  Determined to find out why this individual merited his own brand, I did some research and found that there are two Evan Williams:  One of myth and one of reality.

Since no one has the least idea of what Williams looked like, his picture above, manufactured by Heaven Hill, belongs in the myth category, as do ads purporting to tell his story.  Shown here, a 1957 offering from the National Distillers Products Company headlined:  “Little did Evan Williams know what he was starting.”  The illustration is of a tall, rawboned pioneer watching as his distillery is being built.  It goes on:   “Evan Williams came down to Kentucky from Pennsylvania and set up a small distillery in 1783.  He had heard of the limestone springs of crystalline purity….As he set about his distilling, little did Evan Williams know he was starting a quiet revolution—that this still was to be the birthplace of truly American whiskey—Kentucky bourbon.”

Using the same timeline, in 1983 Heaven Hill celebrated the 200th Anniversary of the vaunted distillery by a magazine ad that headlined:  “Evan Williams started a quiet revolution in 1783.”  Again there was an illustration of a rugged pioneer watching as his distillery is constructed.  This ad declares:  “His was not a large distillery but the ideas he conceived were so revolutionary and so successful that all others have spent the last 200 years matching the rich unique taste he discovered on the Kentucky frontier.”

A historical marker, cannily sponsored by Heaven Hill, is more cautious in its claims but still anoints Williams with the first commercial distillery in Kentucky. Located on Louisville’s “Whiskey Row,” where many major distillers have their headquarters, the Evan Williams Bourbon Experience is a museum cum micro-distillery, event space, and sales shop that claims 100,000 visitors annually.  A stop on the Kentucky Bourbon Trail, it perpetuates the mythical Evan Williams. 

Facts about the “real” Evan Williams, though they are few, are not a tidy fit with the myth.  He was born in Pembrokeshire, Wales, about the middle of the 18th Century.  As shown on the map here, the district is a peninsula jutting out into the Atlantic Ocean.  The town itself is an ancient one with remnants of ancient castles and fortifications scattered about.  

The real Evan Williams may have looked more like the drawing here than other depictions.  Rather than being tall, Williams may have been like his fellow Welshmen, quite short.  In World War one, the men of the 17th Welsh Regiment ranged between five feet and five feet three inches in height.  Unlike neighboring Scotland distilling was not a common occupation in Wales.  Thus, it is unclear where Williams learned the craft.

Historian Michael Veach of the Filson Historical Society disputes the much quoted 1783 date identifying Williams as Kentucky’s first distiller.  He points out that the year was first identified more than century after Williams’ death by an amateur Kentucky historian.   Veach explains: “For one thing, the dating is disproved by the existence of a receipt for William’s passage from London to Philadelphia on the ship Pigoe dated May 1,1884.”  Moreover, he says, others were distilling in Kentucky as early as 1779.

We have no way of knowing how long Williams stayed in Philadelphia.  By the late 1780s he was in Louisville, at the time a small town on the banks of the Ohio River.  He initially operated a small still there buying corn from local farmers who often had problems disposing of their surplus crops.  As the historical marker indicates, Williams may have been the first to market his whiskey outside Louisville by sending barrels by flatboat down the Ohio River.  By 1801 he was recorded operating three whiskey stills at 141, 130 and 93 gallons capacity.

The identification as bourbon in the ads and elsewhere of what Williams distilled is bogus. His whiskey would have been sold just as it came out of the still, what we would call “moonshine” or white lightning.  Bourbon is aged in charred barrels.  That technique had not yet been discovered.  Far from the “rich unique taste” claimed in the 1983 ad, Williams is said to have had “a rocky start.” According to whiskey historians:  “Early drinkers would rely on the beverage as ‘a good medicine for chills and fever,’ but decried it as ‘bad whiskey.’”

Williams soon ran into problems with local authorities.  Although Kentucky was something of a frontier, it also was a clone of highly regulated Virginia.  When the distiller claimed the right to sell his whiskey without a license, a grand jury in 1788 indicted him for the offense.  The latter day descriptions of William’s operation also ignore an action against the distiller that condemned his practice of dumping his discharge water, spent mash and other smelly byproducts into the Ohio River.  “Ironically, Williams himself was serving as Louisville’s elected harbormaster and was in charge of the wharf’s cleanliness at the time.”

Louisville Harbor 1780s

William’s run-ins with local authorities do not seem to have darkened his reputation in Louisville.  As harbormaster he facilitated the teeming river traffic traveling the Ohio River, unloading and reloading past the falls at Louisville and shipping onward to the Mississippi and New Orleans.  Shown here, the harbor was small and needed close supervision to avoid traffic jams. Williams enforced a regulation stipulating that all boats had to be unloaded and moved out of the harbor within forty-eight hours after their arrival.  Williams also was one of Louisville’s seven elected trustees.  He is said regularly to have brought a bottle of his whiskey to meetings to share with his fellow trustees.  It reportedly was always empty by the end of the meeting.

Both ads above depicting Williams have one legitimate feature.  They show him with a rolled up paper that contains the plans for his distillery.  The distiller was a builder and very likely would have been involved with such drawings.  Williams also was a master stonemason who oversaw the construction of the first jail and courthouse in Louisville.  I can find no reference to a wife or family for Williams and he may have been a lifelong bachelor.  He died on October 15, 1810, and was buried a local cemetery. 

Williams was rescued from the obscurity that surrounds most of the earliest Kentucky distillers when in 1957 Heaven Hill introduced a brand of bourbon named for him.  When I go to my liquor cabinet this weekend to make Manhattans, the whiskey that comes to hand will be a bottle of Evan Williams.  The contents bear little resemblance to the product made by its namesake and in spite of the bald fictional history,  the whiskey makes a tasty cocktail.

Notes:  Important among the sources for this post were an internet article by Historians Kate Sowada and Christopher Beebout who filled in many details about Evan William’s life, and Michael Veach in his book “Kentucky Bourbon Whiskey:  An American Heritage,” University of Kentucky Press, 2013.  

  

 

John Y. “Bose” Covington at the age when many children today are still in elementary school, is reported to have been thrust into the position of managing not only his family plantation but a mercantile trade when his father unexpectedly died.  Covington’s survival of this challenge and his rise to prominence in community building and philanthropy in Monroe, Louisiana, lead squarely through one location — The Silver King Saloon.

Covington was born in 1863 in Red River, Texas, where his father,  John A.,  operated what apparently was a substantial farm.  John A. originally was from Alabama and Bose’s mother from Louisiana.  With no indication that the family owned slaves, the Covingtons may have been openly or covertly on the Union side during the Civil War.  In post-war 1873 the father accepted an appointment from the Grant Administration as postmaster of Forksville, Louisiana, a town a dozen miles from Monroe, and the family moved there.  John A. would have obtained this patronage position only if he were believed to be a Republican and a loyal “Union man.”  The job administering the U.S. mail apparently allowed the father to buy a small farm and open a store in Forksville, likely adjacent to the post office.

Then the story gets murky.  That area of Louisiana was home to numerous Covingtons, several of them named John.  The local newspaper obituary for this John Y. says his father died  when he was a boy of 14:  “Upon which the latter immediately assumed the task of carrying on the burdens of the plantation and the merchantile enterprise.” That dating would put John A.’s death in 1877.  A genealogical site, however,  puts the father’s death at 1890 when “Bose” (no clue how he got that nickname) would have been considerably older.

Whichever version is closer to the truth, the young Covington in time did dispose of the farm and moved to Monroe with the remnants of his father’s store.  My guess is that liquor was an important part of his stock.  By 1900 he opened a highly successful saloon and liquor dealership that he called “The Silver King Saloon.”  Shown left is a photograph of the two story building at 121 to 129 Grand Street.  Below are shots of the busy saloon interior and the liquor sales area where the central figure may be Covington himself.

Covington’s wholesale business required him to receive shipments of whiskey by rail in barrel quantities.  These were then decanted into ceramic jugs of gallon and larger sizes to be sold to his wholesale customers in other local saloons or restaurants and hotels.  Those containers in turn would be poured into smaller quantities for serving over the bar.  Covington featured a variety of ceramic whiskey jugs, from ones crudely marked with an incised name to more sophisticated jugs with elaborate under-glazed labels.

Covington also was “rectifying,” that is blending, bulk whiskeys to achieve particular taste, smoothness, color and other attributes, likely in the saloon basement.  These would have been bottled in embossed glass quart and smaller containers with paper labels.  “St. Clair Whiskey” appears to have been a proprietary brand, as was “Silver Wedding 1884 Rye.”  The bottles would have been sold both at wholesale and retail. 

The 1900 U.S. Census found Covington, who apparently never married, living in Monroe as the head of a household that included his 60-year old mother, Mary;  his sister Ida;  Ida’s daughter, Lucille, and a black servant named Alice.  Already people in Monroe were beginning to recognize that the young saloonkeeper was a generous soul but were unaware of the true extent of his charity so secret did he keep it.

During the early 20th Century, as prohibitionary forces banned alcohol sales in localities and even whole states, the liquor trade remained open for interstate commerce.  With Louisiana thoroughly “wet,” Monroe became a center for mail order whiskey and beer dealers.  Covington was among them, advertising on his whiskeys and shot glasses.  Quoting the local newspaper:  “He branched out and with commendable business acumen established a mail order liquor business, which by dint of sheer hard work and perseverance he built up into an enterprise of considerable dimensions and laid the foundations for a moderate-sized fortune.” 

As above, Covington publicized his ability to provide quality brands through railway express.  If you bought four full quarts  he would pay express charges.   As the reputation of his mail order house grew, he began to attract attention in neighboring Texas that had gone dry in 1918.  A Texas customer named Gould Collins drove to the Silver King Saloon, loaded up with liquor, and headed back home.  Authorities were watching.  Near the Texas border outside Shreveport they arrested Collins.  Part of the blame fell on Covington as the seller.  When the case reached the Federal Appeals Court,  Covington was absolved of any wrongdoing and Collins, not having crossed the Texas line, was acquitted.

With the advent of National Prohibition, Covington closed down his Silver King saloon and liquor sales, devoting himself to looking after his real estate investments that included a number of downtown Monroe buildings, including the Central Savings & Trust Company,  where he was an officer.  Said his obituary:  “He believed in the steady growth of the community, a belief which eventually was realized.”

As he approached 60 years Covington’s health began to falter.  According to newspaper  accounts, he developed severe intestinal problems.  Seeking better medical treatment than Monroe could provide, he traveled to Colorado, California and Texas.  When nothing availed, he returned home.  Operated on at Monroe’s St. Francis Hospital, “Bose” Covington died an hour later without ever regaining consciousness.  His June 19, 1922, death was mourned as “a real loss to the community.”

 

With Covington’s passing was unlocked the full story of his philanthropy.  Albert Horuff, who had been in charge of the former saloonkeeper’s affairs during his illness, told the Monroe News-Star that only recently had he become fully aware of Covington’s assistance to the needy:   “His indeed was a charitable nature, contributing not only to organized charity, but reaching to the very heart of want and answering with a ready response the appeals of his fellow-men who needed assistance.  Of him might truly be said that his left hand knew not what his right hand performed.”

Covington’s funeral services were held at the Elk’s Hall, conducted by the Rev. A. W. Waddill, pastor of the First Methodist Church of Monroe.  Burial was in the Old City Cemetery. The whiskey man’s badly weathered grave marker is shown here.  Even Covington’s funeral made front page news.  As his steel coffin weighing 800 pounds was being lowered into the ground, a wooden plank used in the process broke.  An undertaker’s employee named Lynch was pitched into the pit and pinned under the casket.  It took many minutes to raise it off the unconscious man.  Rushed to the hospital, Lynch was found not seriously injured.

Note:  This post was researched from a number of sources.  Among them the most important was the lengthy Covington obituary from the Monroe News-Star of June 20, 1922.  All quotes in italics are from that article.

 

 

Foreword:  Presented here are three cases involving violent deaths that involve individuals involved in the liquor trade.  In two instances, the “whiskey men” were suspects.  In the third, he may well have been the victim.  In each story no definitive conclusions are possible about what really happened.  These are mysterious deaths that remain mysteries.

On Saturday night, October 7, 1882, in Waupaca, Wisconsin, Henry C. Mead, shown here, was brutally murdered in his small local bank, with money and records taken from an open safe.  The case went unsolved for years.  A decade later, acting on a tip, the Waupaca district attorney brought charges against a group of friends, including Sam L. Stout, who ran a saloon not far from the scene.

The theory of the crime was that a group of conspirators had gathered in Stout’s saloon, likely with the intention of rendering Mead unconscious and raiding his vault of money, but perhaps more important, evidence of their indebtedness.  Entering though a window in the rear, they had clubbed the banker from behind, but failed to knock him out.  As Mead rose he recognized his assailants.  Now in peril of discovery, an intruder who had brought a shotgun fired point blank at the banker’s head, killing him instantly and creating the gory scene.  They then emptied the vault.  

When asked if he had killed Mead, Stout denied it categorically.  He knew the two men arrested with him, but denied he had ever met Mead.  In an effort to sway the jury to conviction, the prosecution had the banker’s skull dug up and shown in the courtroom where it caused a sensation.  As shown here in a photo, held by the district attorney, the entire front of Mead’s face was missing.  As the press had a field day, the trial dragged on in summer heat for six week.  In the end the prosecution had only circumstantial evidence and dubious witnesses.  It look the jury of local merchants and farmers only 24 minutes to declare the defendants not guilty.  Stout went free and continued to operate his saloon until his death in 1907.

For years afterward speculation about who had killed Banker Mead was rampant in Waupaca and elsewhere in Wisconsin.  In 1929, a story in the Milwaukee Journal sought to bring an end to speculation.  It  reported that a former sheriff, since deceased, in 1907 had obtained a deathbed confession from one of the three men, a confession later confirmed by the daughter of another one of the accused.  Since the only one to die in that timeframe was Sam Stout, the finger of guilt pointed squarely at him.  That story too was hearsay, however, not proof.  To this day Banker Mead’s murder remains unsolved.

The whiskey jug shown here bears the name of H.T. Hessig, a  distillery owner and physician in Paducah, Kentucky, whose wife died in June 1905 of mysterious causes. The couple were known to have marital problems including physical altercations.  Suspicion immediately fell on Dr. Hessig.

Dr. Hessig had married, apparently for the first time, about the age of 45.  His bride was Ida Ethel Levan, a woman about 21 years old.  It was not long before Hessig and his wife began “fussing,” to use the words of their housekeeper. Elita Towie.  At an inquest, Ms. Towie related that she witnessed one altercation “…In which they fought from the library into the kitchen…Mrs. Hessig ending the quarrel with two blows on the doctor with a poker.”  The couple also had been in police court more than once for domestic disturbances.

On the morning of June 13, 1905, Ida Ethel Hessig was found dead in her bedroom. She had been discovered there by her doctor husband who was alone at the time.  The circumstances were deemed suspicious although no toxicology analysis was done on Ida Ethel’s body.  Dr. Hessig insisted his wife had died as the result of an epileptic seizure.  A coroner’s jury was empaneled.  Ms. Towie told the jurors that Ida Ethel had confided to her that she was afraid Dr. Hessig might attempt to hurt her once he found out she was determined to get a divorce.  She also was asking a large alimony settlement that likely was part of the financial troubles driving her husband to declare bankruptcy.  Ida Ethel’s family also contributed incriminating testimony.

The initial decision of the jury, according to the Paducah Sun, was “somewhat disagreeable to Dr. Hessig.”  His lawyer later in the day, however, was able to persuade jury members to amend the language. In the end they exonerated the physician completely from any connection to Ida Ethel’s death.  Case closed. Dr.  Hessig went back to the practice of medicine and soon after remarried.  His new bride was about 17 years old.   Many locals remained convinced the doctor had gotten away with murder.  Had he?

Our third mystery also is set in Paducah.  On a Sunday afternoon in June 1913, Solomon H. “Sol” Dreyfuss was found dead of gunshot wounds lying in his office at the liquor house of Dreyfuss & Weil.  His hand was near a pistol he kept in his desk.  The family claimed an accident; onlookers suspected suicide.  No formal investigation ensued.  Dreyfuss’s death certificate simply gave the cause as “gunshot wounds…manner unknown.”  Puzzling questions remained.  Suicide takes one shot, Dreyfuss had been shot twice — each one potentially causing instant death.  One shot entered the liquor dealer’s right temple.  The other bullet pierced his skull back of the right ear.  Looking at available evidence years later, Paducah police concluded Dreyfus was victim of a homicide.  But who shot him and why?

Dreyfuss earlier had stirred considerable national controversy.  A popular muckraking American journalist Will Irwin, writing in Collier’s Weekly of May 16, 1908, blamed some liquor dealers for suggesting that their gin possessed the properties of aphrodisiacs. “The gin was cheap, its labels bore lascivious suggestions and were decorated with highly indecent portraiture of white women.”  Such liquor, he implied, could drive men to rape and murder.  He singled out for special attention Dreyfuss & Weil’s “Devil’s Island Endurance Gin.” 

Sol’s personal and business life, however, offered no real clues to his death.  Observers noted that Dreyfuss’ liquor store had been broken into several times in the months preceding his death, usually on weekends.  Substantial amounts of liquor had been stolen.  Had Sol surprised burglars who wrested his gun from him and shot him with it?  

 

No such speculation seems immediately to have followed his death. Fingerprints were not lifted from the gun, the office was not searched for clues, no interrogations were conducted, and no official police report was filed.  The family’s insistence that Sol’s death was an accident was accepted by authorities and the case closed.  That two shots had been fired seemed to concern no one.  Sol Dreyfuss was given a quick funeral and buried in Temple Israel Cemetery in nearby Lone Oak, Kentucky.  The mystery of his death remains.

Note:  More extensive posts on each of these ”whiskey men” may be found elsewhere on this site:  Sam Stout, June 20, 2021;  Dr. H. T. Hessig, January 8, 2021, and Sol Dreyfuss,  June 6, 2021.

Shown here is a studio-posed photograph of Edward A. Kolb in a wrestling hold with his eldest son, Harry.  A successful San Francisco liquor dealer,  Kolb as a young man was renowned in California as a champion West Coast wrestler.  As Kolb entered middle age, however, he began to wrestle mentally with the burdens of fame, fortune and family.  That bout he did not win.

Edward Kolb was born in Monroe, Wisconsin, in September 1863, the son of Emma and Abtaham Kolb.  His father, an immigrant from Baden-Wurttemberg, Germany, moved to San Francisco about 1869.  There the boy early was introduced to the German Turnverein athletics where he demonstrated superior ability at gymnastics but soon caught wider attention as a highly talented wrestler.

In those days wrestling styles were classified two ways:  Greco-Roman, the Olympic style, dictates that the legs may not be used in any way to obtain a fall, and no holds may be taken below the waist.  Catch-as-catch-can is free style wrestling in which nearly all holds and tactics are permitted in both upright and ground wrestling.  Rules forbid only actions that may injure an opponent, such as strangling, kicking, gouging, and hitting with a closed fist.  Kolb was a master at both styles. He held the Pacific Coast Middle-Weight Amateur Championship from 1885 until 1890.  

Perhaps Kolb’s most notable victory occurred in 1888 was when he met the heavyweight champion of the West Coast, a wrestler named Pritchard.  After tussling for two hours without either man gaining a fall, the match was postponed for a month.  At the rematch, Kolb won in two straight falls.  Another well-publicized win was in April 1990 when he defeated Al Lean, leading to Kolb being crowned overall champion of the West Coast. 

Honored as Referee

That victory was not without controversy.  An investigation into wrestling practices by California officials heard testimony from a wrestler named Gus Ungerman who claimed he knew enough about cheating in amateur wrestling “to fill a book.”  He told investigators that he thought the Kolb-Lean match was a “fake,” implying that Lean threw it.  Whether it was this allegation or for other reasons, Kolb’s active career in wrestling ended soon after, but he continued as a respected referee.

In the meantime Kolb’s life had taken a new turn.  In San Francisco he met 19-year-old Emma Catherine Denhard, the daughter of Wilhelmina and John Denhard.  Shown here, Emma, had been born in New York City and brought to San Francisco by her parents as a child.  Ed and Emma were married there in July 1888.  The couple would have five children over the next 13 years:  Harry, born in 1889; Emma, 1891; Edward Otto, 1893, Alfred, 1894, and Claire, 1903.  All five would have long lives.

The same year as his marriage to Emma, Kolb teamed with her brother, Herman Denhard, to open a liquor store.  Ed had learned the whiskey and wine trade working in the storage cellars of Kohler & Van Bergen [see post on Van Bergen, Nov. 1, 2020].  As shown by the trade card above, Kolb & Denhard featured a wide range of imported and domestic wines, liquors and mineral waters at their 422 Montgomery Street address, shown below.  That is Kolb standing at the left side of the photo, staring into the camera.  

The partners were also “rectifying” their own proprietary brands, that is, blending “raw” whiskeys to achieve a desired taste, color and smoothness.  Their house labels were  “Old Tom Parker,” “Non-Pareil,” and “Old Joe Tracy.”  San Francisco liquor stores vied with each other to produce whiskey bottles with fancy designs in the glass embossing of their bottles.  Kolb & Denhard’s may have been the most elegant.  The bottles bore several different representations of deer. My supposition is that Kolb was behind the images. His passion for deer hunting, mostly occurring in the Mendocino hills of central California, was given considerable newspaper coverage.

By all accounts the Kolb & Denard liquor house was a rousing success.  So much did his business thrive that when Kohler & Van Bergen left their original premises, Kolb, said to be fulfilling a youthful ambition, moved to that location.  Said the San Francisco Call newspaper of of Kolb:  “He…built up a big business by his untiring energy and by his big warmhearted manner.”

Kolb’s home life seems to have been pleasant, surrounded by his young family.  The photo above from the late 1990s shows Ed playing cards with Emma.  From the pile of chips in from of him and the few facing Emma, Ed seems to be winning.  It is a domestic scene of a couple enjoying a comfortable evening at home.  Yet things were beginning to go wrong.

A first indication of trouble may have been in April 1902 when Kolb & Denhard posted a dissolution of partnership by mutual consent when Herman Denhard withdrew from the liquor house partnership.  Kolb took over all assets, assumed liabilities and continued the business at the same 417-419 Montgomery address.  What prompted this move after 14 successful years doing business together?  Denhard apparently did not leave because of better opportunities.  San Francisco directories indicate that afterward he had no employment for several years until 1905. That year Denhard was recorded working as a desk clerk at the California Hotel.  Kolb wasted no time in changing the company name to E. A. Kolb Co. Inc.  An embossed amber whiskey bears that name.

In 1903, according to press accounts, Kolb:  “…suffered a nervous collapse, brought on by too close application to business.  Although he abandoned the active life to which he had been accustomed,the rest did not bring him the wished for relief.”  With his liquor business now being carried out by associates, Kolb sought respite in the quiet of the family’s country house in Palo Alto, 33 miles south of San Francisco.  Nothing, however, seemed to ease his mental torment. 

 

Kolb died in Palo Alto on January 22, 1904.  Although the possibility of suicide was not even hinted, his passing was totally unexpected.  After months of concern about his mental wellbeing family and friends were said to be “inexpressibly shocked at his untimely death.”  Edward Kolb was only 40.  He left behind his widow and five children, the oldest fourteen, the youngest a baby of ten months.  Kolb’s body was returned to San Francisco by train for burial in Colma’s Cypress Lawn Cemetery. The wrestling champion apparently had met an opponent he could not overcome — his own mind.

Notes:  I was drawn to the story of Edward Kolb by seeing examples of his  company’s whiskey bottles from the Ken Schwartz collection in the “Virtual Museum” of the Federation of Historical Bottle Collectors (FOHBC).  That led me to other sources, including Kolb’s extensive obituary in the San Francisco Call of Jan. 23, 1904.  Several online sources filled in the whiskey man’s stellar wrestling career.

 

We can excuse A. Perley Fitch for abandoning his first name for the odd-sounding “Perley.”  After all, he was baptized “Amasa,” a label anyone might want to shuck.  But can we forgive him for using his role as a trusted Concord, New Hampshire, pharmacy owner to make and merchandise nostrums containing dangerous substances and claim without proof they would cure serious diseases?

Perhaps the least troubling of his products was his whiskey.  An important element in the physician’s black bag of that time, whiskey was used in a variety of ways.  Like other pharmacists, Perley obliged with his own proprietary brand.  Shown below, he called it “Morrill’s Old Rye.”  My assumption is that he named it for Vermont Senator Justin Smith Morrill (1810-1898), a prominent ally of Abraham  Lincoln and author of the Morrill Land Grant College Act, legislation that revolutionized the American system of higher education.

Perley was born in Enfield, New Hampshire, in 1843, the son of Eunice Sargent and Asa Fitch, a farmer.  One of eight children, with limited education, he went to work at age 14 for a Concord pharmaceutical firm.  After learning the trade there, in 1861 with a partner he started a firm called Fitch & Underhill.  When that drug store closed five years later, he became a junior member of Eastman & Fitch, druggists.  In 1882, Perley bought out Eastman and henceforth ran the operation himself, incorporating in 1914.

By that time Perley was heavily into selling his nostrums.  He credited his most prominent remedy to the recipe of a deceased Concord physician, Dr, A. H. Crosby,  an advocate of frontier medicine.  Doc Crosby is quoted saying: “Many of the indigenous plants were very easily gathered, and were so carefully prepared that not even the extracts, tinctures, and elixirs of the same plants from the hands of the manufacturing pharmacists equaled them in therapeutic effect.”  When Crosby died without commercially exploiting his formula, Perley moved in,  He called the potion “Fitchmul.”

Ingredients listed in a company ad shown here indicate the potential perils of Fitchmul.   Chloric ether is a substance created by dissolving chloroform in alcohol.  It is considered habit-forming and a narcotic.  Hydrocyanic acid, also known as prussic acid, is a compound in which “cyanide” is the key element.  It is considered extremely poisonous.  Even small concentrations of hydrocyanic acid if inhaled, can cause headache, dizziness, feeling of suffocation, and nausea.  Tartrate of antimony  is used to induce vomiting and was used by the Romans in their bacchanalias.  Fitch’s 1907 patent application for Fitchmul indicates yet another ingredient called Venetian turpentine,  a product used to dilute oil paint.  One Internet entry says:  “The solvent is highly toxic. Turpentine weakens the paint film as well as our health.”  Finally, Fitchmul was just under 12% alcohol, about the same as red wine.

What was this mixture of ingredients meant to accomplish?  As seen in the ad here, among its uses Fitchmul was “curative of Bronco-Pneumonia,”  valuable in the treatment of acute or chronic bronchitis, and a cough remedy.  Then, amazingly, attention is directed by the ad below the beltline to the urethra, the tube that carries urine from the bladder.  Fitchmul is claimed to treat urethritis, an inflammation caused by an infection, sometimes linked to sexually transmitted gonorrhoea.   This litany of cures was embellished by “puff” pieces in pseudo-medical magazines.  In a 1904 edition of “Therapeutics” a Dr. William L. Allen of New York reveals the wonders he achieved with Fitchmul in curing advanced tuberculosis and ministering to a five year old girl with pneumonia:  “Treated with nothing but Fitchmul the child made a complete recovery.”

While Fitchmul was the flagship of Perley’s fleet of remedies, he issued a number of others.   PAN-ZIN-OID may have been among the more oddly named concoctions.  It was composed of bicarbonate of soda, ginger, and two enzymes, pepsin and pancreatin, all aimed at aiding digestion and curbing stomach problems including “borborygmus.”  For those readers as ignorant of that malady as I was, borborygmus is the rumbling or gurgling noises made by the movement of fluid and gas through the intestines. 

The success of Fitchmul and his other patent medicines caused Perley to outgrow the space available at his drug store on Concord’s Main Street where  24 clerks reputedly toiled to keep up with orders from all over the country.  In 1913 he leased the triangular-shaped Optima Building as a separate location where he claimed: “Fitchmul remedies are manufactured in fine modern laboratories.”  Having gained a national customer base, Perley was growing rich.  

In the mid 1860s, Perley had married Annie A. Colby, like himself born and educated in New Hampshire.  Their only child, a boy, died shortly after birth.  When the Fitchmul company incorporated in 1914, Perley made Annie one of four directors.  The couple lived in a comfortable home at 138 School Street in Concord.  A photograph from the New Hampshire Historical Society above shows the couple sitting on the front porch. The Fitches also kept a rustic cottage on New Hampshire’s Sunapee Lake, 35 miles northwest of Concord.  Perley owned five steamboats on the lake as owner and general manager of the Woodsum Steamboat Company.

Even in his early 70s, Perley Fitch continued to be engaged personally in both retail sales and the manufacture of his line of medicinal products.  As he aged, however, he began to be troubled by heart problems.  In October 1917, he was felled by a heart attack and died at the age of 75.  He was buried in Concord’s Blossom Hill Cemetery in Annie’s family plot.  His gravestone is marked only by his initials.

Despite the Food and Drug Laws ushered in with the 20th Century, the Fitchmul Company continued to thrive, apparently adjusting its recipes and advertising to meet every new government requirement.  Only in 1931 can I find the company in legal problems when it was hauled before a U.S. District Court for selling a nostrum called “Elder Hook’s Healing Balm.”  This product, said authorities, was misbranded and “false and fraudulent since it contained no ingredient or combination of ingredients capable of producing the effects claimed.”  No one from Fitchmul contested the finding and 69 packages of balm were destroyed.  

The company moved from Concord to Manchester, New Hampshire, in 1950.  In 1967, the A. Perley Fitch Company was acquired by Gilman Brothers, a Boston drug firm.  Shown here is a pre-1967 bottle and box of Fitchmul. The actual age is difficult to assess.  The bottle with box recently sold at auction to a collector of  medicinals for $69.  

Note:  This post was drawn from a variety of sources.  The most important was a biography that appeared about Perley Fitch in a 1915 issue of the Granite Monthly, a  local Concord magazine.  Special thanks to Peter Samuelson of  Intervale, New Hampshire, and his fellow collectors, Joe Shaw and Ray Trottier, for their help with photographs of Fitch bottles.

Shown above are the five Sottile (sah-tilly) brothers with their two sisters.  No, these immigrants from Sicily were not circus performers.  A family biography put it this way:  “Through their hard work, determination and entrepreneurial skills…Giovanni, Nicholas, Santo, Albert and James achieved high esteem, affluence and prosperity in their various business ventures and civic efforts in Charleston.”Their launching pad in South Carolina, as indicated by the illustration above, was selling whiskey.

As the eldest and first to come to America, Giovanni (aka “John”) Sottile was the “founding brother.”  As each siblng reached maturity, four would follow him:  Nicholas in 1890, Santo, 1891, Albert, circa 1897, and James, 1899.  After landing in New York City, Giovanni, shown here, had gone straight to South Carolina, to become an accountant for a phosphate mining company.  After several years, he left that job and settled in Charleston and entered the liquor trade.  With brother Nicholas in May 1895 he opened a bar and food stand called the Jetty House on nearby Sullivan’s Island.  That enterprise evolved into a liquor and beer enterprise located at a complex called the Vendue Range, near the Charleston waterfront. Called G. Sottile & Bro. it was a success and brought considerable wealth to the family.

Giovanni and later his brothers, understanding Charleston’s potential for growth,  intelligently used their money to buy real estate in and around the city. Because of Giovanni’s prominence, in 1899 the Italian government appointed him as Italy’s honorary consul for North and South Carolina.  From his experience with the mining company Giovanni was aware of the harsh treatment often meted out to Italian workers and he took up their cause.  According to a report:  “One sick worker who could not return to work was shot dead for disobeying a work order. Sottile appealed to South Carolina Governor McSweeney and investigations ensued. This was the first of three exploitation incidents that Sottile was involved in investigating for possible prosecution.”

At a model farm Giovanni bought about 20 miles from  Charleston, he actively gave employment to Italian immigrants.  He also had purchased a spacious four story house brick house in Charleston from which he managed his consular activities and entertained Italian dignitaries and local politicians.  His childhood sweetheart, Carmela Restivo, whom he had returned to Italy to marry, proved a gracious hostess.  In 1909 Giovanni’s service earned him a knighthood from the King of Italy.   Unfortunately, at the height of his career, Giovanni died unexpectedly at home in 1913.  Only 46, he left a widow and four minor children.  With his brothers and their families in attendance he was buried in Charleston’s St. Lawrence Cemetery.

Nicholas Sottile, the second brother to arrive from Sicily, continued Giovanni’s legacy of entrepreneurship and public service.  As some point he left the family liquor house at the Vendue to own and operate the Washington Square Cafe,  a popular Charleston eatery and saloon, strategically placed across from the Hibernian Hall between Broad and Queen Streets.  As South Carolina was going “dry,” Nicholas apparently determined that the crockery offered more opportunity and established the China and Glass Emporium on King Street and an automobile paint shop.

Nicholas also was active in local affairs, serving as a Charleston alderman and later a member of the board of trustees of Charleston High School.  As the father of eight children he apparently had a strong appreciation of the value of education.  Retired as he reached 60 years, Nicholas died unexpectedly of a heart attack in November 1928.   Commending this Sottile as “ever active in politics and the general life of the community,”  Charleston’s mayor ordered the flag flown at half staff over city hall in Nicholas’ honor.  He was buried in St. Lawrence Cemetery near Giovanni.

Meanwhile the Sottile liquor house at the Venue, now called Sottile Brothers, had continued without Giovanni or Nicholas. In charge were Santo and Albert Sottile, with the youngest brother, James, employed there.  Shown above is a company letterhead from 1904 advertising their primary brand, “Old Quaker Rye.”  This was the product of the Corning Distillery of Peoria, Illinois, and a premier national brand. [See post on Corning January 26, 2016].

As prohibitionary pressures increased, Santo Sottile, shown here, shifted his focus.  In the 1910 census he gave his occupation as “wine merchant.”  By 1914, at the same location he was listed as president of the “Interstate Distributing Company” advertised as “general brokers.”  It is not clear whether the outfit was dealing in wine or spirits.  As many other whiskey men did as prohibition prevailed, Santo moved into the automotive field, listed as running a garage and “The People’s Tire Service.”  Subsequent directory listings recorded him as a Charleston Cadillac dealer.  Married and the father of six children, Santo died at the age of 61 and was buried in St. Lawrence Cemetery.

Prohibition also had moved Albert (aka “Alberto”) Sottile, shown here, out of the liquor trade.  In rapid fashion he earned recognition as “Charleston’s “great entertainment impresario” a man who “understood the value of visual delights,” according to a July 2019 article in the College of Charleston Magazine.  Alfred was the 1908 founder and president of the Pastime Amusement Company, heading it for 52 years.  During that time, the magazine reported:   “Mr. Sottile oversaw a dazzling stable of properties punctuating downtown Charleston, including the Garden Theatre, the Riviera and the American on King Street; the Arcade on Liberty Street; and the Victory on Society Street. Most showed first-run films…while others also presented touring vaudeville shows.”

Shown above is the Sottile Theater, now part of the college campus.  It is reported that during intermissions at this theatre while the 16 millimeter reels were changed, Albert would entertain the audience by singing Italian songs, accompanied by a large pipe organ he had imported from Italy.   Like his brothers, Albert was a family man with a wife and one daughter.  He housed them in the large frame mansion at 11 College St., also now part of the campus.  Albert died in 1960 at the age of the age of 82.  His burial site is not identified.

Although James (aka “Frank”) Sottile was the youngest of the brothers and the last to arrive in America, he proved to be a fast learner.  Employed at the Sottile Brothers liquor house through 1907, by the 1910 census, he listed his occupation as an independent broker, unspecified as to what he might have been brokering.  Three years later, still under 30 years old, James would be listed in city directories as president of a Charleston company that manufactured “sashes, doors, blinds and general millwork,” vice president of Alfred’s amusement company, and president of the Charleston-Isle of Pines Traction Company.  In 1914, with the exception of a few lots,  James became sole owner of Isle of Pines, a seashore resort island near Charleston.  As shown below, he constructed a spacious beach pavilion and a Ferris wheel on the property.  He made his headquarters at the Charleston hotel, above, a venue he also came to own.

But Charleston was not enough to satisfy James’ ambitions.  Married and with three children, he looked to Florida as a place for profitable investment.  While always considering the South Carolina city home, he and his family maintained a residence in Miami. James’ principal investment was a 30,000 acre property near Florida City known popularly as Sottile Farms.  After investing heavily in digging drainage canals and establishing roads, he leased farm plots to Italian-American farmers employing a tenant system used in Sicily.  Assisted by his sons, James gradually built up holdings of over 5,000 acres of citrus groves and 10,000 head of cattle on 30,000 acres of pasture. He eventually owned nine Florida banks.

Said one South Florida newspaper report: “ Not long after the arrival of James Sottile on the scene Florida City morphed into an Italian community…The new farmers were very industrious and sacrificing and later prospered greatly.  Sottile was also very generous, donating land for the State Farmers’ Market, farm worker housing… and the land for Homestead’s Bayfront Park.”  Giovanni’s legacy lived on.  

By the time of his death in 1964 at age 77, James was accounted one of the richest men in America.  His body was carried from Florida back to Charleston where he was buried at St. Lawrence Cemetery not far from his brothers.  Subsequent generations of Sottiles have carried on the family tradition of creative entrepreneurship, public service and concern for those less fortunate.  They have placed a plaque with the names of the family members who immigrated to the United States on the “American Immigrant Wall of Honor” at Ellis Island and hold regular reunions.  Importantly, descendants have given due respect to what generated the initial financial impetus for Sottile achievements: Selling whiskey.  The image that opens this post was the cover of a family reunion brochure.

Note:  Given their achievements, the Sottiles deserve book-length treatment, perhaps generated by the College of Charleston.  Led to the brothers as “whiskey men” by the picture that opens this story, I found considerable material on genealogical sites and in newspaper articles, including obituaries. The family website offered photos. Unable to find a photo of James Sottile, I am hopeful a descendant will see this post and provide one.

 Foreword:  Alcohol being highly combustible it is little wonder that explosions were an all too frequent occurrence in distilleries, liquor warehouses and even “rectifiying” (blending) operations.  Sometimes, as documented here, an highly destructive explosion could be triggered by a “whiskey man” unrelated to alcohol. Following are vignettes of incidents from Peoria, Illinois; New Orleans, and Virginia City, Nevada.

Beginning about 1871 the Woolner Brothers — Jacob, Ignatius, Adolph, Samuel, and Morris — set out to dominate the vibrant and growing Peoria liquor industry.  Over the years the family would be responsible for buying and selling multiple whiskey manufacturing plants.  The Woolners also played a major role in the two attempts at a “Whiskey Trust.”

Their path to domination, however, was not without trauma.  In the spring of 1881, the Woolners’ main distillery burned.  As shown below, most of the buildings were destroyed. As shown below, only the still house stood after the blaze.  The brothers immediately pledged to rebuild.  Amidst the rubble the Woolners found that two tubs of fermented mash had been left virtually untouched.  After slight repairs to the tubs it was decided to run the contents through a repaired still: “…The boilers were cleaned and refitted, the pumps rigged, and the distillation commenced.”  The Woolners had made a terrible mistake. 

As the Chicago Tribune sold the story: “Without a moment’s warning, a loud explosion was heard, the gigantic tub swayed and careened over, and a rush of steam escaped from the lower chamber, carrying everything before it.  Men were picked up and hurled, scalded and parboiled, from twenty to forty feet away, and ruthlessly bruised with falling bricks and timbers.”  Of eighteen men injured in the blast thirteen died, many painfully.  A worker identified as Max Woolner, likely a nephew, was killed instantly.  Ignatius, 41, the brother who was supervising the operation, was badly burned and died that night.  Their solidarity shattered, the Woolner brothers ultimately went different ways. 

Otto Karstendiek early demonstrated his abilities as a liquor and wine dealer  From his Tchoupoulas Street headquarters in uptown New Orleans close to the Mississippi River, as early as 1853 he was advertising in a wide area beyond Louisiana.  A Galveston newspaper ad declared Karstendiek & Company an importer of European brandies and wines as well as “Dealers in all kinds of domestic liquors….”  By the end of the decade Otto was doing business from two New orleans warehouses, each four stories high and a block long.  Both were filled with liquor.

On Saturday, October 13, 1860, tragedy struck.  About 8 p.m. a large fire of undetermined origin broke out in one Karstendiek warehouse.  Soon the structure was engulfed in flames from the ground floor to the roof, imperiling the second warehouse.  When the fire reached the top floor where considerable liquor was stored, a tremendous explosion occurred, destroying both warehouses and spreading the fire to adjoining structures. 

The New Orleans Picayune reported:  “No battlefield, no steamboat explosion could  exceed the horror of the scene.  There under the enormous mass of smoking ruins, thirty or forty men lay buried.”  Chief among them were members of New Orleans volunteer fire companies that had responded to the alarm and were pour water on the first warehouse.  The paper listed the names and units of men pulled dead, dying or injured in the explosion.  Among those who barely escaped was the New Orleans chief of police.  Rescue efforts were hampered by the intense heat of the fire.  “Many, many more remained buried under the ruins,as we left the scene.  Two had been heard to speak, but could not be reached and, horrible to relate, they stated that the fire was burning the timbers underneath, and gaining upon them,” the newspaper reported.

Karstendiek does not seem to have been on the premises when the fire occurred.  While he sustained the loss of his buildings and some stock, substantial quantities of the whiskey he was storing reputedly were owned by second parties.  Although I can find no information on the total death count or monetary loss the latter would be the equivalent today of millions.  This financial setback may have accounted for Karstendiek later joining the so-called “Whiskey Ring” and going to prison as a result.

With an illustrious past as the General Provost Marshall for Nevada appointed by President Lincoln during the Civil War and first president of the Nevada State Legislature,  Jacob Van Bokkelen, proprietor of a Virginia City saloon and beer garden, was a celebrity in Virginia City.  People were willing to overlook his idiosyncrasies of keeping a spider monkey as a pet and his  cavalier attitude toward dynamite, boasting that he had such confidence in the product that he stored it in his apartment.

What Van Bokkelen’s fellow citizens likely did not know was that he also was experimenting with more volatile explosives. In August 1973 the New York Times printed a letter from a man named White that stated: “When I visited Gen. Van Bokkelen, he told me that he would soon have a blasting agent in the market that would excel giant powder [dynamite].”  On my asking what it was, he turned to [six] cases and opened them, showing me the gun-cotton saturated with nitro-glycerine, together with the cotton pulp mixture.”

At 10:45 p.m. on June 29, 1873, a huge explosion rocked Virginia City.  When the dust and smoke cleared, ten people were found dead, among them General Van Bokkelen. His body was found in a corner of his room, “his features so bruised and charred as to be unrecognizable,” read one newspaper account.  Other victims were three local merchants, a female hotel owner, three other men and an eight-year old girl.  Many were killed by falling timbers and bricks.  One man died when he was stuck by an iron door hurled the distance of 100 feet.

A number of Virginia City buildings were destroyed or severely damaged.  They included the Bank of California, Armory Hall, Daly’s Saloon, a grocery store and a building that used the upper floor as a lodging-house.  The city went into mourning and flags were flown at half mast.  The city’s Fourth of July celebration was canceled and the money collected for it used to bury the dead.  Subsequent days were filled with funeral processions wending through the gates of the local graveyard.

As with any disaster of this kind, townsfolk looked for someone to blame.  Fingered as the chief culprit was the spider monkey, whose remains could not be found amid the rubble, presumably blown to bits.  Speculation was that Van Bokkelen’s pet was playing with a can of nitroglycerine and dropped it.  The container exploded, causing the others to explode.  That blast in turn detonated the 150 pounds of dynamite Van Bokkelen was living with.  That was the theory.  In truth, we will never know.

Note:  Longer posts on all three men may be found on this website:  The Woolners, July 8, 2021;  Otto Karstendiek, August 25, 2021, and Jacob Van Bokkelen, December 19, 2020.