Author name: Jack Sullivan

 While a student at a Baptist college in his native Kentucky, John Gaines Roach became a Baptist convert through the rite of immersion.  He is said to have “remained a devout and active member for the remainder of his life.”  Roach’s religious affiliation, however, failed to deter him from owning and operating three whiskey-making distilleries at the same time or from building another when one burned.

John was born in March 1845 in Campbellsville, Kentucky,  the son of Martha P. White and J. J. Roach, a relatively wealthy farmer originally from Virginia.  Although Kentucky was a border state that was controlled largely by Union forces, Roach left college in 1861 to join the elite Confederate cavalry of Kentuckian Gen. John Hunt Morgan.  Participating in Morgan’s raids into the North, Roach helped capture two Ohio River steamers at Brandenburg, Kentucky, that allowed Morgan’s men to cross into Indiana, Ohio and ultimately West Virginia.

In July 1863, Roach was captured along with the bulk of Morgan’s men near Bluffington Island, West Virginia.  Imprisoned initially at Columbus, Ohio, he was sent to the Union prison near Chicago.   Called Camp Douglas, right, the facility was notorious for the high death rate among prisoners.  Roach survived 18 months there and was released only after the surrender at Appomattox.  He returned to Kentucky to find the Roach family fortunes in tatters and five of his seven cousins who had fought for the South among the slain.

For the next four years Roach was occupied in coal mining and shipping operations in south central Kentucky.  Ambitious and apparently finding this employment unrewarding, he moved to Louisville.  That city had escaped damage during the war and its population was booming, increasing almost 50% from 1860 t0 1870.  About a third were Roach’s fellow Baptists.   Roach would have noted that population as well as Louisville’s increasing importance as a center of America’s distilling industry.

In 1869, with assistance from his father, Roach partnered with J.J. Grove, an established Louisville businessman, to start a liquor house called Grove, Roach & Company, located at 74-76 Sixth Street between Main and Market.  In 1874, again with help from his father, he bought out Grove and changed the name of the business to John G. Roach & Company.

In the meantime, John was having a personal life.  At the age of 25, he married Sally Neill, 18, the daughter of Mathew and Eliza Neill of Louisville.  Her father was a prominent local industrialist.  The couple would have two sons, Neill and Ethric.   Sally like her husband was a Baptist and something of a scriptural expert.  For more than 25 years she conducted Bible instruction for Sunday school teachers and contributed articles to religious publications, including the Baptist Expositor, a national doctrinal publication.   Her view of her husband’s role in the Louisville liquor trade are unknown.  She married him, however, when he was fully engaged in selling whiskey and it seems not to have troubled their relationship.

After five years of operating his liquor house, a restless John Roach sold the business and began to build and operate distilleries.  The first was in Uniontown, Kentucky, 150 miles southwest of Louisville, described as “one of the best arranged and equipped distilleries in the United States.”   Named the Rich Grain Distillery after the brand produced there, this facility, shown below, featured a two story still house with a capacity of mashing 1,000 bushels of grain a day, a three story elevator , and two warehouses with a capacity of 31,000 barrels. A newspaper reporter visiting the site extolled the offices, the malt-house and even the cattle pens.  Rich Grain Whiskey, he claimed was sold “…From New York to San Francisco and Chicago to New Orleans.”

Roach’s second plant was the Old Log Cabin Distillery, again named for the proprietary brand of whiskey produced there.  Located on Louisville’s  waterfront, this facility included a three story still house with the capacity of mashing 600 bushels a day, two bonded warehouse that held 20,000 barrels, offices and a residence for the manager.   The warehouses drew particular praise from an observer:  “Here are to be seen two of the finest and bonded warehouses  to be found in the state…supplied with all modern improvements in construction, patent ricks…forming a well-ventilated pyramid of barrels….It is one of the dryest and best ventilated warehouses in the district.”

The Bel Air Distillery subsequently was built by Roach on the outskirts of Louisville. It boasted a three story still house with a capacity of 600 bushels a day, an extensive warehouse that held 17,000 barrels, and a house for the manager.   Said one report:  “The distillery is adapted to its uses, having the engines and boilers on the ground and separate from the distillery proper. 

In 1892 after the Rich Grain Distillery burned, Roach apparently decided that rhe long trek to Uniontown was too far and instead of rebuilding there, he constructed his fourth plant in Louisville.  Known as the John G. Roach & Co. Distillery, this facility was located at 30th and Garland Streets.  Insurance underwriter records for 1896 indicate that the distillery was of brick and iron-clad construction, with a brick boiler-house. The property included a separate mill building and cattle sheds, the later located 115 feet north of the still.  Two warehouses were on the property.  In 1893, the Louisville Courier Journal observed:  “A large distiller from the interior of the State who recently went through this house, pronounced it by far the most perfect distillery he had ever seen, and the only one in existence that a man could operate, if he so desired, in a dress suit.”  

Among other whiskey brands that Roach featured from his distilleries was“Kentucky’s Sugar Corn,” and “Suwanee Pure Rye.  He often bottled these in clear glass flasks, embossed with his name, city and legend:  “Pure Kentucky Whiskies.”  As shown below, Roach also was providing all the whiskey for the  grocery and liquor business of Domenico Canale in Memphis. [See my post on Canale, Nov. 26, 2011.]

With frequent enthusiastic accolades as the owner/operator of major distilleries, Roach found himself celebrated among Kentucky’s “Whiskey Barons.”   Meanwhile, however, Baptist leadership in Kentucky and elsewhere was taking an increasingly hard line against alcohol, ignoring the fact that Elijah Craig, a Baptist minister, had been among the earliest Kentucky distillers and credited by some as the creator of bourbon [See post Nov. 30, 2021].  In 1896 the Southern Baptist Convention leadership voted in favor of absolute prohibition of alcohol.  They further declared that those Baptists selling or drinking spirits, wine or beer should be excommunicated from their congregations.  All across southern and border states distillers, liquor dealers and saloon keepers were banned from Baptist worship.

How this interdiction was received by John Roach or his wife Sally has gone unrecorded.  Nor is there any evidence of formal church action being taken against Roach.  By 1900, however, the highly successful Kentucky distiller was selling off his properties.  At least two of them went to the “Whiskey Trust.”  They included the Louisville distillery bearing Roach’s name.  Julius Kessler, the guiding force of the cartel, is recorded operating the facility from about 1903 until the coming of National Prohibition in 1920.   Although Roach had not rebuilt the Rich Grain Distillery in Uniontown its warehouses remained.  In 1892, he also sold that property to the Trust.  Trust executives rebuilt the distillery and operated it under the name Mutual Distilling Co., and later as the Union County Distilling Co.  The plant closed with Prohibition and was abandoned.

Union National Bank Note

At the time of his sell-off, Roach was still only 55.  With the proceed of the sales  he rapidly became an important figure in Louisville’s banking sector as a stockholder and director in the Union National Bank, the Bank of Commerce and the Louisville Insurance Company.  He also was active in the local Democratic Party, serving as chairman from 1880 to 1892.  There Roach’s affiliation with alcohol was no bar.  So popular was he that a campaign was mounted in 1882 to draft him to run for mayor.  He politely declined. Later, however, he accepted an appointment as commissioner for the county’s Central Insane Asylum.  He was a delegate to the national Democratic Convention of 1884 as a supporter of Grover Cleveland, who was running in a field of eight.  Cleveland won the nomination and ultimately the Presidency.

As they aged and with their sons grown the Roaches moved to a luxury apartment building called “The Parsons” on Bonnycastle Road.  There at the age of 62 Roach died in December 1907.  The cause given was “apoplexy and paralysis,”  indicating the effects of a stroke.  Indicating some Baptist ill-feeling toward the distiller, Roach was not buried from a church.  His services, described as “simple,” were held in the family apartment by Rev. George Eager of the Southern Baptist Seminary.  By contrast, when Sally died in 1938, her funeral was conducted at the Beechwood Baptist Church with relatives and friends in attendance.  The couple are buried together in Cave Hill Cemetery where many whiskey “royalty” are interred. 

Roach’s career as a distiller while being a devout Baptist with a wife active in church work indicates toleration or at least ambivalence among the denomination’s adherents during the late 19th Century.  As “dry” forces increased their strength and vehemence against strong drink, however, leaders in the Baptist and other Protestant denominations harden their positions.  I believe John Roach was forced to make a choice, and whatever his personal beliefs about alcohol, sold off his highly successful distilleries for religious reasons.

Note:  More than usual in these posts newspaper articles involving Roach were crucial in weaving together this story of a Baptist whiskey man.  The Louisville Courier Journal proved a rich source of information, apparently finding Roach and his distilleries worthy of considerable attention.  Bryan Bush in his 2021 book “Bluegrass Bourbon Barons” provides a succinct biography of Roach.  The publisher is American Palate, a division of the History Press, Charleston SC. 

“I made my first mental maps of the world, when I was a little child in the summertime, on the shores of Lake Maxinkuckee, which is in northern Indiana, halfway between Chicago and Indianapolis…. Because everything about that lake was imprinted on my mind when it held so little and was so eager for information, it will be my lake as long as I live.” — Kurt Vonnegut, Author

Robert (born Rupert) Kreuzberger, a successful liquor dealer from Lockport, Indiana, likely harbored similar sentimental feelings about Lake Maxinkuckee when he lavished his time and money on creating a popular resort on its shores.  Shown here, Kreuzberger was among the many whiskey men who fostered recreational opportunities for their communities, dying before he could see his labors undone by prohibitionary forces.

Born in Wirttemberg, Germany, in March 1843, Kreuzberger reached America’s shores in 1863 during the midst of the Civil War.  Unlike many young male German immigrants, he did not enlist to fight but apparently headed almost immediately for Logansport, Indiana, where he may have had relatives.  My assumption is that he found employment with one of the several liquor houses

there.

In 1867, at the age of 25, Robert also found a bride in Logansport.  She was Mary Meyer, 21, who had been born in Ohio of German immigrant parents.  The couple would go on to have six children over the next two decades, three boys and three girls.  The financial challenges of a growing family may have provided the incentive for Robert to leave being employed and in 1873 launch his own wholesale and retail wine and liquor business.  A Catholic, Kreuzberger appears to have emphasized selling “altar wines.”

Advertising himself as an :”Importer and Wholesale Merchant in Wines & Liquors,” Kreuzberger was also selling at retail, bottling his proprietary brands of liquor from shipment of whiskey and wine received from distillers and wineries across America.  He used amber bottles with his name and Logansport embossed on them.

The German immigrant appears to have been quickly successful.  He subsequently provided sketches of showing his quarters as his business grew.  At left is his first store, a small two story building.  Within six years he had outgrown his initial quarters and was inhabiting a three story structure, shown below right,  capable of hold 55,000 gallons of product.  When that building became insufficient for his business needs in 1886, Kreuzberger moved again to a more spacious location, left.

When Kreuzberger’s last move came in 1890, he saw it as an opportunity for a celebration, issuing a fancy invitation that apparently went not only to his customers but to dignitaries across Indiana. In part it read:  “No effort will be spared to make your visit to our enterprising city a very pleasant and interesting one.”  Shown right, this large building at Third and Market Streets provided Kreuzberger with the capacity to hold 100,000 gallons of wine and whiskey.

Having expanded to the maximum in Logansport, Kreuzberger now cast his eyes 47 miles north to Lake Maxinkuckee, Indiana’s second largest, and the shoreside town of Culver, earlier called “Marmont.”  There a Terre Haute resident named Anton Mayer had bought three acres and built a drinking establishment known as Mayer’s Beer Garden.  Some said it also harbored a brothel.  In 1894 Robert Kreuzberger bought the property and immediately began improvements designed to transform the site into a first class resort.

A local newspaper reported what the Logansport whiskey man achieved in a short time:    “Kruezberger Park…is situated upon the west side of Maxinkuckee Lake, and presents a grand panoramic scene in nature and art.  The park grounds are covered with magnificent shade trees and leisure seekers can enjoy the cool breezes of the lake while reclining on rustic seats, hammocks , etc.   On the grounds are situated Kreuzbergers’ wine pavilion, beer garden, pond, billiard room, and bowling alley.  This is one of the finest places on the lake, and is visited by the elite of all cities.”

The following year saw the Kreuzbergers sponsoring a giant lakeside picnic for veterans of the Mexican War who had marched out of Logansport 49 years earlier.  The Vandalia Railroad Company, whose interurban line ran to Lake Maxinkuckee, provided an excursion train to take the men to what was described in the local press as “a huge glittering success.”  Imagine the pride of the impresario whose labor of love had made the lake resort possible.

Although he visited frequently, Kreuzberger relied on a strategic plan that emphasized distinct operations, each run by a qualified manager.  The resort restaurant was under the proprietorship of D.A. Bradley, the wine and beer hall run by William Knoble, and the bowling alley under a third manager.  To keep watch over these three and the resort as a whole he designated his son, Robert Junior.

Over the next decade, Kreuzberger was frequently at the lake supervising renovations and improvements as the resort continued to flourish.  Even then he could sense the growing tide of anti-alcohol sentiment rising in Indiana.  In 1904, he was arrested by state authorities for violating liquor laws by allowing after hours drinking.  He paid a fine. About the same time he began planning to hive off six lots, each about 40 feet by 120 feet as sites for privately owned cottages. He supervised this subdivision personally, declaring in handwriting:  “…I am the proprietor of this addition, and the same was platted and laid out under my direction….”

In 1907 local “dry” forces were able to mount what one newspaper declared “a monster saloon remonstrance,”  a petition with sufficient signatures under Indiana law to require all the saloons in Culver to shut down for two years.  The Kreuzbergers’ Maxinkuckee resort was included.  In October of that year all the properties went up for sale.   Eventually the hotel and restaurant became a rooming house.

Robert Kreuzberger was not there to see the end of his dream to bring an elite resort to the shores of Lake Maxinkuckee.   In November 1906, after a brief illness, the Logansport liquor dealer, age 63, was felled by a stroke, lapsed into unconsciousness and died the following day.  The local newspaper called him “one of the most prominent businessmen of Logansport.”  Robert was buried in the city’s Good Hope Cemetery where his wife Mary would join him four years later.

Note:  Although multiple sources were referenced in writing this post, two stand out as particularly important:   “Kreuzberger’s Park and Saloon”  on The Culver-Union Township Public Library internet site “Culver Through the Years” and the website “Lake Maxinkuckee Its Intrigue History & Genealogy”  assembled by Judith E. (McKee) Burns.

 

Foreword:  As a rule, but not always, America’s pre-Prohibition “whiskey men” tended toward non-violent activities even when they overstepped the law.   When “love” entered the picture, however, stronger and more reckless impulses might lead to acts of homicide.  Below are three brief accounts of how an intense passion for a woman could lead to death for one or more individuals, caught up in the heat of the moment.

Stanley Cooney was part of a Irish-American family that ran a grocery and liquor store in Nashville, Tennessee.  The youth might have spent his life there had he not fallen in love with Mary Isabelle Wheeler from a prominent Texas family.  In 1888 the couple married.  Mary was 21 and her husband 28.  After a year of living with Stanley in Nashville,  Mary became homesick for her family.   She persuaded her spouse to relocate to the Lone Star State and open a business there.  The town they selected was New Birmingham, a newly minted community in East Texas built around local iron ore operations. It was a boom town that quickly had grown to more than 3,000 residents boasting a business district of 15 blocks.

But life was not to be tranquil for the Cooneys in New Birmingham.  Townsfolk were gossiping scandal about Mary, some of it reputedly coming from the household of former Confederate Gen. William H. Hamman, an influential citizen. Despite being described as usually  “notably quiet and gentlemanly in his demeanor,” Cooney was neither when he encountered Hamman.   Blinded by anger, he used both barrels of his shotgun to shoot the general down in the street.   The Tennessean’s motive was said to be that Hamman had defamed the character of his wife.  Some whispered, however, that it was Hamman’s wife who had traduced Mary.

Caught with the smoking gun still in his hand, young Stanley waived a preliminary hearing, was arrested and sent to jail.  When word of this killing reached Nashville, his father and other family members immediately left for Texas to help the boy.  A Nashville paper opined:  “The news of yesterday was a great shock to them and the universal opinion is that he must have been justifiable in what he did.”  Those sentiments did not translate to Texas.  Despite able legal assistance, young Cooney was convicted of manslaughter and sentenced to prison.  Meanwhile Hamman was buried in the Owensville Cemetery in nearby Calvert, Texas.

In 1892 Cooney — likely with help from Mary’s politically potent Wheeler family — was pardoned and released from jail.  The couple quickly headed back to Nashville where Stanley resumed selling liquor and Mary made a career as an artist.  The news appears to have unhinged the Widow Hamman.  “In a fit of outrage and grief,” as it is told, she ran through the streets screaming to the heavens to “leave no stick or stone standing” in the town.  As New Birmingham slowly lapsed into a ghost town, many saw her diatribe as an omen or perhaps a curse.

After killing the owner of the Valley Saloon in a gun battle and disposing of whatever financial interest he had in the drinking establishment, “Long Henry” Thompson left Seco, Montana, for several years.  In the meantime his reputation as a gunslinger continued to grow.  Shown here in a drawing,  it was said of Long Henry that whatever his target, even birds on the wing, he rarely missed.  Some called him “the most desperate character in Montana.”

In February 1902, Thompson returned to Seco with a wad of cash.  The money drew the attention of his former lover, Georgia Grant.  In his absence Georgia had taken up residence with a local named Eddie Shufeldt, now co-owner of the Valley Saloon.  When Shufeldt found Long Henry and Georgia drinking together at his bar, he cursed her. In retaliation Thompson slugged him on the jaw.  The gunslinger then left the premises reputedly telling Shufeldt:  “You want to look out for me, for when I come back, I’ll come a shootin.’

When Long Henry returned 15 minutes later, Shufeldt was standing next to the saloon door.  Although he later claimed Thompson had a gun in his hand when he entered, no one else saw it.  The jilted lover immediately emptied his sixgun point blank into Thompson’s body, killing him instantly.  Later Georgia Grant announced she would shoot the first man who claimed she was the cause of the fight.  That did not discourage newspapers in Montana and elsewhere in the West from headlines claiming that the notorious gunman had been killed by a jealous man.  Long Henry was buried in the Grandview Cemetery in Seco.  Shufeldt went free.

The letterhead above for James W. Cornell, introduces a successful saloonkeeper and liquor dealer of Cascade, Montana, whose passion for a “soiled dove” led to a tragic end.  Cornell, 45 years old and 17 years married, found Goldie Graham at a Great Falls brothel and became totally enamored of her.  Their relationship over time apparently became strained as he might have seen her transfer her affections elsewhere.  He began to drink heavily and when drunk was known to threaten Goldie. On the night of July 16, 1911, according to the Great Falls Leader, Cornell, now estranged from his wife Mary, closed his saloon and mounting the Great Northern train in Cascade arrived in Great Falls about 10 p.m.  Bystanders said he appeared to be sober.

Cornell went straight to the brothel and accosted Goldie who was a front room with other women.  According to witnesses they argued.  He stood up, took a 44. caliber pistol from his pocket, looked at Goldie, and shouted:  “I’ve been going to do this for a long time and now I’ll finish it.”  The madam tried to hustle Goldie out of the room when she sensed trouble, but the young woman was slow to heed the warning. 

 At last sensing the danger, Goldie tried to run out a back door.  Said one newspaper account:  “Cornell was too quick for her and shot her.  The bullet entered Goldie’s left side well toward the base of the lungs, passed entirely through her body, coming out the right side, tore a hole in her right arm and lodged in the wall.”  Then the saloonkeeper raised the pistol one more time, pointed it at his head and blew his brains out.  His passion and fury spent, James Cornell lay in a pool of blood, dead on the brothel floor.  

Meanwhile, Goldie, badly wounded, staggered into the back yard where she was assisted by another prostitute who caught her as she fell.  The friend beat out a fire on her dress that had been ignited by the powder flash and carried her to a bed. The young woman was rushed to a hospital where she lingered in pain for a week before dying.  Her death certificate listed the cause as “gun shot wound of lungs” and labeled it a homicide.  Cornell’s body was claimed by his estranged wife along with a ring some said he earlier had intended for Goldie.

Note: Expanded posts on each of the three men featured here may be found on this site:   Stanley Cooney, April 22, 2015;  Long Henry Thompson, March 5, 2020; and James Cornell, March 2, 2021.

 

      

Shown here is the way a YouTube illustrator imagined that a Louisville, Kentucky, liquor dealer named Oscar E. Rehm might have looked.  Why this pre-Prohibition “whiskey man” is featured on a contemporary video involves a now century old breach of contract lawsuit he filed against a Kentucky distiller. If you want admittance to the bar, you had better be familiar with Rehm-Zeiher Co. vs. F. G. Walker Co.

Rehm came late to the whiskey trade.  His father, John Frederick Rehm, an immigrant from Baden-Wurttemberg, Germany, ran a Louisville grocery store and initially Oscar took up the trade.  After a few years, he apparently decided that selling liquor was a much more lucrative trade than peddling leaks and lettuce.  In 1904, he joined with two other Louisville locals to form the Rehm-Zeiher liquor company, incorporating with a capital stock of $10,000, divided into 100 shares of $100 each.  Rehm as president held 57 shares.  His partners shared 33.

From the outset Rehm, not a distiller himself, had a problem obtaining whiskey.  Although Louisville and the surrounding area boasted more distilleries than any other place in America, most established distillers had longstanding arrangements for sales to liquor dealers.  Moreover, the Kentucky-based “Whiskey Trust,” although weakening over time, had tied up much of the whiskey being produced in Kentucky and hiked prices.  Rehm needed a steady supplier to sustain his business.  

He found it in a distillery founded by Felix G. Walker, a resident of Nelson County, Kentucky.  Sometime before 1876, Walker had built a distillery approximately one mile west of Bardstown on the Bardstown-Boston Pike adjacent to College Creek.  By 1890, the distillery was mashing 240 bushels of grain daily with a yield of 20 barrels.  Shown here, the facility held two bonded warehouses with a capacity of 6,000 barrels.  It also had onsite bottling capability.  Walker’s successor as owner of the distillery, R.H. Edelen, had become friendly with Rehm.

According to Rehm’s court testimony, Edelen in November 1908, brought him a proposed contract, saying:  “Read this; I believe you can use this whiskey.”  It proposed that Rehm-Zeiher would buy 2,000 cases of Walker whiskey in 1909, 3,000 cases in 1910, 4,000 cases in 1911 and 5,000 cases in 1912.  There would be a set price for the four years. Rehm told the court he replied:  “That is too much whiskey for us; we are a young firm just building up our trade, and I don’t believe we can use it.”  He testified that Edelen then suggested:  “You don’t have to take it all if you can’t use it; you are a growing firm; your business will increase that much.”  On those grounds, Rehm claimed, he signed a contract — a scene rendered here by YouTube.

Rehm named the whiskey to be purchased from the Walker distillery, “Fernwood,” ironically the same name as a Henderson, Kentucky, cemetery.  As part of the deal Edelen agreed to bottle and label the whiskey and provide it by the case to the Louisville liquor house.  That apparently was enough to allow Rehm to anoint his company as “distillers” in his advertising.

As it turned out, Rehm-Zeiher took only about one-third of the agreed cases of Fernwood whiskey in both 1909 and 1910.  In 1911, by contrast, the Louisville company requested all 4,000 cases prescribed in the agreement.  The price of whiskey had risen sharply in the interim and at the set price Oscar Rehm anticipated windfall profits.  Obviously able to sell its whiskey elsewhere for considerably more than had been agreed with Rehm, the Walker distillery delivered only 1,004 cases. 

Crying breach of contract, Rehm and his partners took the matter to court.  Their attorneys argued that since under the contract F. G. Walker & Co. could have compelled Rehm-Zeiher to take all the agreed whiskey (but didn’t), the Louisville firm could compel Walker to deliver all 4,000 cases.  When a lower court found for the Walker company, Rehm appealed to Kentucky’s Court of Appeals, the state’s highest judicial body.  That court also found for Walker, ruling that a reservation in a purchase agreement by a buyer in which he may, at his own discretion, refuse to make a purchase voids the contract for lack of mutuality.  Over time, perhaps because of the alcoholic nature of the commodity, Rehm-Zeiher Co. vs. F.G. Walker Co. has become a classic court ruling in contract law.  Thus the case has gained multiple references on Internet legal sites and engendered a YouTube video used for bar exam preparation.

The legal setback for Oscar Rehm was followed in a few years by the imposition of National Prohibition.  His liquor house was shut down.   Rehm’s subsequent business foray was to start a company called Ream Motors “to engage in the automobile business in Louisville.”  He took his sons Oscar F. and Warren as partners.  When that enterprise fizzled, he shifted Rehm-Zeiher from booze to stocks and bonds, advertising as an investment firm.  That business died with the Great Depression.  When Prohibition was repealed in 1934, Rehm was 65.  He did not reenter the whiskey trade and died in 1956 at the age of 86.

Oscar Rehm was buried in Cave Hill Cemetery where so many luminaries in Kentucky whiskey history are interred.   Unlike many of them who have elaborate monuments to mark the spot, Rehm’s grave has a simple cement bench.   Anyone paying their respects may sit there and ponder the vagaries of life and time that have transformed Rehm’s failed lawsuit into a 21st Century legal icon.

Note:  This post was occasioned by finding the Fernwood bottle on line and tracking its origin to Oscar Rehm and then to the YouTube video that so graphically illustrates a case in contract law that may have achieved celebrity  because whiskey is involved.  The video was produced by Quimby Bar Review, an outfit that for $999 will help lawyer wannabes pass the bar exam.  To see the entire video (1.5 minutes) enter the case name.

 

Philip Bissinger, a saloonkeeper in Reading, Pennsylvania, lived a tale of horror that closely resembled the plot of the Greek tragedy “Medea” by Euripides. In the play Medea is thrown over by her husband, Jason, for another woman.  She then takes her revenge by killing their children.  Jason is blamed by both the gods and men and dies ignominiously.  Could Bissinger, shown here in later life, evade that fate?

The real life tragedy unfolded on a sunny August day in 1875 when Bissinger’s wife,  a pregnant Louisa, took their three children, Lillie (age 9), Mollie (age 6), and Philip (age 3) on a trolley to Reading’s Penn Street Bridge, crossed the span and walked them two miles down a canal towpath to the area of Gring’s Mill and Lock No. 49 East.  Shown here in a newspaper sketch, Louisa was carrying a basket and told the children they were going to have a picnic. 

Once thy reached the spot, shown below, Louisa loaded the basket with rocks, some of which at her direction the children had picked up along the way.  She then tied the basket to her waist, grabbed hold of the unsuspecting children, and plunged with them into the murky waters of the canal.  Weighed down by the stones, the mother sank immediately.  Although she lost her grip on the children,they could not swim and struggled to stay afloat.  The only onlooker, a non-swimmer, ran for a boat but was too late.  By the time he reached them Louisa and all three children had drowned, along with the unborn in her womb.  Below are photos of the site of the drownings.

The press reported that Louisa’s commission of this final desperate act came about as the culmination of her husband’s longtime “undo respect” toward her and his open affair with another woman whom he eventually brought into their home.  A newspaper story, datelined “Reading, Pa., August 21,” claimed that an argument had led to Bissinger ordering Louisa from their living quarters and told to take the two girls, but to leave their son.  Louisa, not known previously to have emotional problems, seemingly had been “driven to the wall” and decided to kill herself as well as her offspring.

Inflamed by press accounts, the mood in Reading was ugly.  An estimated 5,000 people showed up to view the four bodies at a wake in Bissinger’s saloon and to shout at the proprietor, shown left in an unflattering newspaper drawing.  Calling Bissinger “a monster,”  the crowd accused him of causing the deaths.  He needed five police escorts to Reading’s Charles Evens Cemetery where the four were buried in a single grave. Mourners followed the hearses and continued their verbal assaults against Bissinger.

The crowd’s fury reached a crescendo during funeral services at the grave.  Onlookers screamed, “Hang him!”. Two gunshots were said to have been aimed in Bissinger’s direction.  Finally a mob estimated at more than 1,000 rushed toward him, apparently determined to “string him up.”  Police intervened and got Bissinger into a carriage and escorted him out of the area.

The media and community continued to heap scorn on Bissinger until he felt obliged to respond.  In a lengthy statement to the press, the saloonkeeper asserted: “I deny maltreatment, threatening her life, insulting her, offering her money to separate, improper intercourse with others, and I did not neglect to provide or care for my wife and children.”  Earlier in his statement, however, Bissinger exposed his controlling personality:  “Louisa and I had a difference in character and disposition, plus I asked her to have an inclination to let go of her individuality and natural spirit to ensure happiness. I requested she…mend her womanly failings, which caused us great problems…My unhappy wife failed to understand how to assimilate herself with my disposition….”

Livid at the response from Bissinger, her brother, Fred, responded in the press on behalf of her family.   Among his allegations: “Captain Phillip Bissinger married Louisa then distanced her from her family. My family was never allowed to see Louisa or her children. Louisa was a tortured and weak woman who was quite literally tortured to misery and death!….Captain Philip Bissinger and the strumpet he ran around with caused the ruin of Louisa’s family. She couldn’t let someone else raise her children….”

After these exchanges, Bissinger apparently never publicly addressed the events at Lock 49 East again but set about trying to restore his reputation in Reading as a respected citizen.  Among the his assets was his service in the Civil War.  Born in Germany and brought to America as a boy, he was schooled in Pennsylvania and in the Civil War joined the 79th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry Regiment, whose battle flag is shown here.  Compiling a distinguished war record, Bissinger rose from the enlisted ranks to become the captain of the regiment’s Company F.  He would be called “captain” for the rest of his life.

Bissinger also could point to his success as a Reading businessman.  At his marriage to Louisa her family had gifted him with one of their businesses, a restaurant and saloon, that he renamed “Cafe Bissinger.”  Located in a large building at 611 Penn Street it became one of Reading’s most prominent and prestigious eateries and meeting places.  As indicated in an ad, Bissinger also was selling liquor, wine and beer both at wholesale and retail from the premises.

Later he would go on to co-found the Reading Brewing Company, a highly successful enterprise providing substantial employment for the city.

Moreover, for two decades (1864-1883) Bissinger was highly influential and successful in the cultural life of Reading.  When two German singing societies merged there, he was chosen as the director.  Bissinger went on to become musical director of the Germania Orchestra, one chosen to play at the U.S. Centennial Celebration in Philadelphia.  Described as a “musician of ability,” in 1879 Bissinger organized the Philharmonic Society of Reading and directed its concerts for four years.

The saloonkeeper also was cautious about pursuing his affair with “the other woman” who reputedly had precipitated the tragic events of 1875.  Described in one news story as a “femme fatale” from Philadelphia, Bissinger’s amorata was in fact a Reading native named Ida Sebald Rosenthal, the daughter of William Rosenthal a journalist and founder of the Reading Post.  Ida, an accomplished musician,  was eight years younger than Philip.  While no doubt continuing their relationship Bissinger waited until 1880, five years after the drownings, to marry Ida, apparently expecting — correctly, it seems — that public anger would dissipate.  Despite having housed Louisa and their children in quarters above Cafe Bissinger, for Ida the new bridegroom promptly built a spacious home, shown here, on Readings’ Mineral Spring Road.  They would have no children.  

Bissinger’s strategy of staying the course of his career in Reading paid off.  Public anger about his treatment of Louisa faded and soon people seemed to forget about his misdeeds.  Eventually, without public outcry, Bissinger was able to be appointed by Reading’s City Council as park commissioner.  He served from 1891 to 1897. 

In 1910 after 30 years of marriage, Ida, who had been in ill-health for some time, died in the couple’s home of what her obituary called “complications.”  Philip lived on another 16 years, but eventually sold his saloon and liquor business. Bissinger’s death certificate put the immediate cause as pneumonia brought on by heart disease.  The couple lay buried in the same Reading cemetery that contains the joint graves of Louisa and the children. 

Although events surrounding the Reading tragedy bear important resemblances to the Medea story, the impact on the husbands involved could not be different.  Jason, the unfaithful spouse of Euripides’ tragedy, having alienated the Greek chorus and more important, the gods, died lonely and unhappy.  He was said to be sleeping on the stern of his rotting ship when it collapsed, killing him instantly.  Bissinger, by contrast, earned a lengthy complimentary write-up in a 1909 volume of Berks County biographies.  No mention is made of his first marriage or the drownings.  The article concludes:  “He possesses a genial and good natured disposition, is a pleasant conversationalist, and has scores of friends throughout this section.”

The story does not end there.  Since the 1875 tragic deaths of Louisa, Mollie, Lillie, Philip and an unborn child, Gring’s Mill’s Lock #49 regularly has been the site of ghostly sightings.  For example,  two nuns walking the canal towpath encountered two little girls in Amish-looking clothing who were soaking wet.  After they passed the nuns turned to look again and the girls had vanished.  Lillie and Mollie?

Note:  Newspaper and other articles abound on the story told here.  Two principal sources were “The Historical and Biographical Annals of Berks County Pennsylvania,” by Morton Montgomery, 1909, and “Reading’s Famous Ghost Family” by Printz, The Reading Eagle, October 18, 2020.

 

On April 1, 1865, the steamboat Bertrand struck a submerged log in the Missouri River about 25 miles upstream from Omaha, Nebraska, and within ten minutes sank in twelve feet of water.  No one died but almost the entire cargo was lost including hundreds of bottles of whiskey and alcoholic tonics bound for a Helena, Montana, store owned by John T. Murphy, shown here. Such a devastating loss might have discouraged another man, but Murphy was steadfast.  He simply re-ordered his liquor and other supplies and went on to become a multi-millionaire.

Murphy’s march to economic prominence began modestly when he was born in 1842 on a farm in Platte County, Missouri, the son of William S. and Amelia Tyler Murphy, both originally from Pennsylvania.  His family was able to send him to a private school until he was 17.   Then drawn by the news of gold strikes Murphy headed West, settling initially in Denver where he clerked in a store.

That was the last time Murphy ever worked for someone else.  As one biographerput it:  “It seems John Murphy was one of those rare individuals who could touch anything and turn it to gold.”  By 1863 he had moved to Nevada City. Colorado, where he opened his own store, one selling liquor among other supplies.  Sensing the end of the gold mining boom there, Murphy loaded a wagon with merchandise, including whiskey,  and headed 800 miles northwest to Virginia City, Montana,  Gold had been discovered there in May 1863.  Within weeks Virginia City had become a boomtown of thousands of prospectors and fortune seekers in the midst of a gold rush. 

Aware of the transitory prosperity of such towns, Murphy next set his sights on Helena, Montana.  Shown here, Helena was the site of The Last Chance Placer Mine, one of the most famous gold deposits in the western United States. It is estimated to have yielded gold worth $3.6 billion in today’s dollars  By 1888 an estimated 50 millionaires lived in Helena, boasting more per capita than in any city in the world.  The city eventually would become the capital of Montana and  Murphy’s home for the rest of his life.

With local partner Sam Neel, Murphy opened a general store in Helena.  A photo of the establishment indicates it was a “false front” structure on the main street where the owners could watch the ox-drawn Conestoga wagons rattle through town. To fetch supplies Murphy floated down the Missouri River on a flatboat to Nebraska City, Nebraska, a commercial center for goods brought by steamboat via the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers.  There he ordered merchandise to be transported overland to Helena the following spring.  Continuing downriver to St. Louis, he ordered more goods to be shipped by steamboat to Fort Benton, a port on the Upper Missouri River, then to be carried overland 130 miles to Helena. 

The Bertrand

Stowed aboard the ill-fated Bertrand, Murphy’s supplies ended at the bottom of the Missouri River.  In 1968, more than 100 years later,  private salvagers discovered the wreck in an area of the river managed by the U.S. Department of the Interior.  Since the boat was found on government property the recovered artifacts were relinquished to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service for permanent preservation. More than 10,000 cubic feet of cargo and over 500,000 artifacts were recovered from the hold during excavation and now are on display at the museum of the DeSoto National Wildlife Refuge near Missouri Valley, Iowa.

Consignment records indicate that a considerable quantity of the whiskey and other liquor on board, including alcoholic bitters, were destined for Murphy & Neel in Helena.  The whiskey bottles long since have had their labels washed away.  They largely are un-embossed and identifying the brands is impossible.  In contrast the bitters bottles have distinctive shapes and are embossed. Illustrated here, they held “Drake’s Plantation Bitters,”  “Dr. J. Hostetter’s Stomach Bitters,” “Kelly’s Old Cabin Bitters,” and “J. H. Schroeder Stomach Bitters.”   The first three brands through national advertising likely had a customer base even in far off Montana.  The fourth bitters was less well known, the product of a Louisville wholesale liquor house.

During this period, Murphy was engaged in a courtship with Elizabeth Morton, the daughter of William and Adaliza Thornton of Clay County, Missouri.  Although John was eleven years older than Elizabeth neither were young at the time of their marriage — the groom 57; the bride, 46.  They married at her home and left for Montana the following spring.  They would have four children.  Of Elizabeth, a newspaper obituary said:  “It is allotted to few to have more friends than Mrs. Murphy.  Those who knew her best, loved her best.  She was one of the most unselfish of women.  Her life was one succession of good deeds.”

Murphy, Neel & Co. flourished during the late 1860s and the 1870s.  As indicated by a letterhead the company was dealing in staple and fancy “Groceries, Provisions, Wines, Liquors, and Cigars.”  The owners advertised as sole agents for Miller’s “Chicken Cock” whiskey from Bourbon County, Kentucky, a popular nationally sold brand. [See post on J. A. Miller, August 8, 2015.]  Day to day management in Helena fell to Sam Neel, with help from a third partner, W. W. Higgins. 

 

Thirty-two years younger than Murphy, Neel rapidly became known as “one of the most successful and able businessmen of the western country,” according to a biographer.  Recognizing the talent of his partners, Murphy created general stores in Deer Lodge in the name of Murphy, Higgins  Co. and Fort Benton as Murphy, Neel & Co.  In 1882 Murphy teamed with Edgar Maclay to open  hardware stores in Helena and Fort Benton under the name Murphy-Maclay, expanding two years later to a third store in Great Falls, Montana.  Murphy and Neel eventually built a new Helena headquarters for their operations, shown below.

His sprawling retail empire brought forcefully to Murphy’s mind the need for improved freighting services over a large section of western Montana.  Under the aegis of Murphy, Neel & Co. he created the Montana Freight Line.  It was aimed at serving local business needs and moving supplies and equipment to the state’s burgeoning mining camps.  The Union Pacific railroad about 1878 had bought a small Mormon-initiated railroad in Utah and extended it to Butte, Montana, to service the copper mines there.  Murphy advertised that his freighting service could carry cargo, including ore, bullion and wool,  from across Montana to the railhead.  His ox and mule trains were said to have the capacity to haul 400,000 pounds per trip. Filling a definite and growing need, the Montana Freight Line again demonstrated Murphy’s “Midas touch.”

Now among Montana’s richest businessmen, Murphy expanded his activities into banking, helping to organize the Helena National Bank in 1891 and a year later creating the Montana Savings Bank.  His mining interests included investments in the Poorman, Jay Gould, Rumley and Silver Bell mines. From his winter home in Fort Meyers he is reported to have invested in Florida citrus farming. 

Murphy’s most notable enterprise was raising livestock.  In October 11, 1911, with three partners he formed the Powder River Land & Cattle Co., with ranch operations on more than 24,000 acres in Custer and Carter Counties, Montana, and other pasturage in South Dakota. There he grazed herds varying in size from 2,300 to 13,000 head.  The operation was incorporated as the Seventy-Nine Ranch with its “79” brand.  Murphy became known as the greatest of Montana’s cattle kings.  George T. Armitage, a cowboy on the “79,” wrote about his experience.  According Armitage, Murphy remained “a shadowy figure” to the many cowboys who worked on the huge ranch.

In his later years, through death Murphy lost some of those closest to him.  In 1897 after a short illness that initially did not seem serious, his wife Elizabeth succumbed to a malady described in the press as “brain fever.”  After a few months, Murphy married again.  She was Clara Cobb, originally from Providence, Rhode island.  Several years later a young son died, followed by his partner, Sam Neel, still only 34 years old.  After what a biographer called “a long and exhausting career,” John T. Murphy himself died in May 1914 and was buried beside Elizabeth in Helena’s Forestvale Cemetery.

Over his lifetime, Murphy, the Western tycoon, had carved out an empire of productive enterprises that made him one of the richest men in the West.  More than a century later the raising of the Bertrand confirmed the principal beginnings of his wealth — selling whiskey and other forms of alcohol.

Notes:  This post was drawn from a variety of sources.  Chief among them were “The Steamboat Bertrand and Missouri River Commerce” and “A Study of 19th Century Glass and Ceramic Containers,” both by Roland R. Switzer;  “Progressive Men of Montana, Illustrated,” A. G. Bowen & Co., 1902; and George T. Armitage, “Prelude to the Last Roundup: the Dying Days of the Great 79,” Montana, Vol II, No. 4. Historical Society of Montana.

 

 

Foreword:  In the years before National Prohibition a handful of American bartenders had a distinct impact on the liquor trade and the drinking habits of the drinking public. Among them, three stand out:  one for inventing, or at least perfecting, a Southern whiskey tipple;  two others for codifying the ingredients for favorite cocktails and offering “codes of conduct” for those making and serving drinks over the bar.  Brief stories on each man follow.

Born a slave about 1808, Jim Cook  was allowed by his owner to be hired out, although the practice was forbidden by Virginia law.  Cook went to Richmond and became a bartender at the Ballard House Hotel, shown here.  Before long the enterprising black man was carving out a high profile career for his ability to craft mint juleps. 

His reputation spread across America and even overseas when Edward, Prince of Wales, the playboy son of Queen Victoria who later became King Edward VII, visited Richmond.  As one reporter noted:  “Having heard that Richmond boasts the best compounder of cooling drinks in the world, the prince undertook to try one.”  Cook provided a tasty julep piled high with ice.  Edward was so impressed with the drink that he ordered two more before leaving town the next morning.  Followed by American and British reporters wherever he went, the prince’s favor made Jim Cook famous.  It is said that the only thing his royal highness later recalled of Richmond was Cook’s julep.

Now a kind of local celebrity, Cook was reported by Richmond newspapers as having left town during the Civil War and making a living by giving anti-Confederate speeches in Washington, D.C.  When the war ended and Union troops entered Richmond Cook soon was back in the city, a freed man, presiding over the bar at the Franklin House Hotel and mixing up mint juleps.  Some Richmond residents resented his support of the Union.  Cook was arrested and accused of stealing money from the Franklin House.  Only upon receiving good character references from the proprietor was the black bartender released from jail.  Cook promptly left Richmond.

At that point Jim Cook faded into the mists of time. He may have settled in Burkeville, Virginia, about 55 miles southwest of Richmond.  A New York Times reporter writing about traveling in the South by rail got off a train at that small town and found that a saloon at the depot, run by “a gentleman of color who rejoices in the name of Jim Cook.”  The newsman wrote that the proprietor had a well-patronized establishment and a card behind the bar that read ”The celebrated new drink by JIM COOK.”  The trail ended there.

 

From an inauspicious beginning in San Francisco, German immigrant Harry Johnson became one of the best known bartenders in America, operating drinking establishments across America while dispensing wisdom on bar-keeping and supplying dozens of drink recipes.  Johnson published one of America’s first bartender’s manuals, gaining recognition as “The Father of American Bartending.”  A unique aspect of Johnson’s manuals was the drawings of cocktails and other libations, some reproduced here.

Restless and wanting to see more of America in 1868 Johnson cashed out of San Francisco and headed east for Chicago.  There he opened a saloon of his own, one he later claimed was “generally recognized as the finest establishment of the kind in this country.”  Modesty was not a strong trait in Harry.  Something of a celebrity in Chicago, Johnson gave lectures, wrote articles and published drink recipes in local newspapers.

As his reputation grew Johnson was invited to participate in a national bartending competition in New Orleans.  The judges asked him to make a dozen whiskey cocktails all at one time.  The German immigrant is said to have placed 12 glasses in two rows of six each and then built a pyramid, apparently similar to one shown here.  “He mixed up the cocktails and strained them using a pair of large glasses without spilling a drop.” That agility won him first prize, $1,000 in gold coins and a silver tumbler and spoon. Johnson subsequently crowned himself “Champion Bartender of the United States.”

Throughout this period Johnson was writing. His “New and Improved Bartender’s Manual, or How to Mix Drinks in the Present Style” was published in 1882. The manual provided hundreds of cocktail recipes.  Johnson has been credited for the first martini recipe. In earlier editions he called it a “Martine” and included a drawing of it both “on the rocks” and “up.”  Throughout the rest of his life he continued to run saloons and update his drink manuals.  He died in New York City in 1933 about the age of 88.

Johnson’s rival for bartending recognition was William T. Boothby, a flamboyant San Francisco politician, saloonkeeper, and author of his own set of “drink books.”  By 1891 Boothby was tending bar at the swanky San Rafael Hotel in the nearby town of the same name.  Self-described as the “Presiding Deity” of the Rafael barroom, he decided, wisely as it turned out, to publish a drink recipe book aiming it at “all students of mixology.”  Calling himself “Cocktail Boothby” and the “Standard Authority,”  he advertised with the line:  “Bar-Keepers – You’re Not In It If You Don’t Read Cocktail Boothby’s ‘American Bartender’”.  An early edition is shown here.

In truth, at this time Boothby did not have a significant amount of bartending experience or know many drink recipes so he included other material.  His cocktails ranged from an “Absinthe Bracer” using the green liqueur and a raw egg, to the “Zsa Zsa Cocktail,” concocted of Dubonnet sweet wine, dry sherry and orange bitters.  Boothby’s first manual also contained advice on how to rescue punky beer and methods for artificially aging liquor, using, believe it or not, pickled cucumbers and Seville oranges.  That 1903 publication was followed by other editions, each longer than the one before.

Boothby continued as Frisco’s premier bartender until National Prohibition shut down all production and sales of alcohol.  Even then he found it hard to stop, continuing to serve drinks “under the counter” at the Orpheum Theatre Annex to his old customers. He was arrested there in 1922 for violating the Volstead Act and paid a fine.  Members of his loyal following stepped in to find him jobs, including one as a steward at the St. Francis Hotel.

In his mid-60s Boothby was diagnosed with cancer and died of the disease in August 1930, at the age of 68. His funeral was thronged with mourners, including an estimated 100 bartenders from across America, many of them grateful for mentions in his books.   Although Boothby did not live to see Repeal, his drink manuals survived and provide the foundation for the hundreds that have followed.

Note:  Longer articles on each of these bartender “whiskey men” may be found elsewhere on this website:  Jim Cook, June 30, 2020;  Harry Johnson, November 21, 2020;  William Boothby, January 1, 2020.

 Arguably, the most important figure in the history of American distilling was Col Edmund H. Taylor Jr. of Kentucky.  During his 92 years (1830-1923) Col. Taylor came to epitomize the whiskey industry and became its chief spokesman to America…

 San Francisco newspapers dubbed it “municipal whiskey,” a blatant aspect of the rampant corruption instigated by top city officials and marketed by Christian Hilbert, shown here, and his brother Fred, local saloonkeepers and liquor dealers.  Then came the 1906 San Francisco earthquake and fire. The Hilberts’ world turned upside down.

The Hilberts misadventures would have been far from in their minds when they emigrated from their native Hamburg, Germany, to the United States.  Although the time frames are a bit confusing, my surmise is that the brothers arrived together aboard the SS Suevia in 1882 when Fred was 19 and Christopher was 15.  They headed for San Francisco where Fred was listed in 1888 as working for Hildebrandt, Posner & Company, wholesale liquor dealers.

Two years later the Crocker Langley directory records the brothers running their own saloon and liquor store, located at the northwest corner of Seventh and Bryant.  After two years at that address, indicating some success, they moved to 101-103 Powell Street.   It is speculated that there the Hilbert’s splurged on creating attractive highly embossed bottles and flasks for their whiskey, likely “rectified” (blended) in their own quarters. 

 

They also issued shot glasses bearing their initials that were given to favored customers such as saloons, restaurants and hotels selling their liquor.  They advertised as “Pacific Coast Agents” for Wilson Whiskey, a well known product from the Ulman, Goldsborough Company of Baltimore. [See post on this firm Feb. 24, 2017.] Below are trade cards issued by the distillers bearing the Hilbert name.

For all the fancy bottles and advertising ware, including bar tokens, evidence is that business was not going well for the Hilberts.  The San Franciso Call on October 1, 1896, carried an ad listing for sale their “old-established liquor store and bar.” That offer apparently drew no buyers and by the following January, the brothers were offering their grocery and bar enterprise for a three year lease at a measly $750 annually.  The photo below of their establishment, known as the Coronado Bar, discloses what must have seemed to the Hilberts as the answer to their financial woes.  It is the man standing at the far left.

Abe Reuf

He was Abe Reuf, the political boss of San Francisco. Born Abraham Rueff from French-Jewish parents, he was a bright student and, when barely fourteen, began studying at the University of California, Berkeley, majoring in classical studies. While attending the university, Reuf developed an interest in fighting the rampant corruption that was endemic to local politics and helped form a “Municipal Reform League.”  But a love for money and power later took him to the “dark side” of the spectrum.  Electing his own man, “Handsome” Eugene Schmitz, a violinist and union chief, as mayor in 1901 Ruef was prepared to accrue as much graft as possible.  He made the Hilberts a proposition that amid their financial woes the brothers accepted.

The brothers hired Reuf as their attorney at the then princely sum of $500 a month ($16,500 equivalent today).  Subsequently Reuf’s name on their business card was larger than their own.  They also made Mayor Schmitz a silent partner in their operation, paying him a commission of $50 ($1,600 equiv.) for every barrel of whiskey sold.  In return the Mayor and his agents pushed the saloons of San Francisco to buy whiskey solely from the brothers through their new named Hilbert Mercantile Company.

Mayor Schmitz

Both Colliers and McClure’s magazines, known as “muck-raking” (read “investigative”) journals published expose’ articles on the Ruef-Schmitz cabal. McClure’s explained the liquor scheme:  After the Hilberts made contracts with Eastern distillers for cheap whiskey at 52-85 cents a gallon, the Mayor and his henchmen forced local saloonkeepers and brothel owners to pay $3.50 a gallon for the substandard booze to avoid trouble.  A portion of the profit was kicked back by the brothers to city officials.  The Hilberts did not always require cash for their whiskey but also took promissory notes for sales. They then sold the notes at discount through San Francisco banks. 

Because of the evident ties to City Hall the Hilberts’ liquor became widely known as “municipal whiskey.”  Christopher and Fred may not have cared; the money rolled in.  As McClure’s noted:  “The saloonkeepers, of course, dared not refuse to take the Hilbert whiskey, because their licenses had to be renewed every three months and if they should insist on their right to buy where they chose, they might be forced out of business.”

That situation changed drastically on Wednesday, April 18, 1906, with the great San Francisco earthquake and devastating fire.  Some believe the Hilbert Mercantile Company was among those businesses destroyed in the conflagration; others are not so sure.  Mayor Schmitz tried to put the best face on the catastrophe by piloting a street car through the wreckage, a stunt that briefly made him popular.  There was, however, no way of restoring the “municipal whiskey scam.  When the promissary notes came due, Hilbert Mercantile Company declared bankruptcy leaving holders “high and dry.”

As criminal investigations against Reuf and Schmitz began, authorities wanted to talk to the Hilberts.  The press reported that Fred had left California and was traveling in Germany with Schmitz.  Christopher was known to have retreated to his wife’s home in Suisun, California and had told friends that the couple were off for a pleasure trip to the Philippine Islands, now a U.S. possession.  Although speculation was that the younger Hilbert actually was seeking to join his brother and Schmitz in Germany, Christopher spent the next two years in the Philippines and apparently never returned to San Francisco.

Fred eventually came back to California but dropped out of sight.  Before the earthquake and fire he had been recorded living in San Francisco with his wife Amelia and their two daughters.  In the 1910 census the family was still there.  Fred, however, was absent from the home.  He resurfaced in Vallejo in 1915.

Meanwhile, Schmitz and Reuf were convicted of extortion and bribery in a San Francisco courtroom.  Reuf was sent to San Quentin Prison.  The office of mayor was declared vacant while Schmitz was sent to jail to await sentence. Shortly thereafter, he was given five years at San Quentin, the maximum sentence the law allowed. He immediately appealed; while awaiting the outcome, he was kept in a cell in the San Francisco County Jail.  After having his sentence reversed by higher courts, Schmitz twice ran for office again and was soundly defeated both times.

After returning to the U.S. from the Philippines Christopher Hilbert relocated to New York City working as a commission merchant.  That occupation allowed him to travel widely to Europe and Asia, often with his wife, Marie Robbins, and their two daughters.   Christopher died at the age of 61 in February 1928 at a hotel in Capri, Italy.  Cremated in Rome, his widow had his ashes buried in his natal  Hamburg.   Meanwhile Fred was employed in a variety of occupations that resulted in his family frequently moving around California.  After his wife died, Fred eventually returned to living in San Francisco and died there in 1945, age 82. He was buried in Cypress Lawn Memorial Park in Colma.

In contrast to Reuf and Schmitz, despite their active participation in one of San Francisco’s most blatant extortion schemes, inexplicably neither Hilbert brother was ever charged with a crime.  

Note:  An embossed bottle led me to the great amount of information available on the Internet about the Hilberts and their activities in a corruption-ridden San Francisco.  A prime source was material at the “Virtual Museum” of the Federation of Historical Bottle Collectors (FOHBC).  The Colliers and McClure’s articles on the Reuf-Schmitz ring were key to understanding how the “municipal whiskey” extortion operated and the integral role played by the Hilbert brothers.

Born into a prosperous family of Kentucky gentry, well educated and eminently successful in business, Daniel Lawson Moore carved his niche in Kentucky whiskey history by fighting to keep alive the name of his father-in-law.  Moore also used distilling premier bourbon as the economic stimulus to create for himself an agricultural empire that stretched from the Blue Grass State to Mississippi and Colorado. 

Among the most celebrated early Kentucky whiskey distiller was Judge W. H. McBrayer.  One contemporary account says of his “Cedar Creek” brand: “It was the whiskey that made the crowned heads of Europe turn from Scotch to bourbon.”  After McBrayer’s death in 1888 his will passed the distillery to his grandchildren.  Having married the judge’s daughter, distiller D. L Moore was their widower father.  The ninth clause of the Judge’s will stated that his heirs could run the distillery in his name for three years after his death: “After which time I desire that my name be entirely stricken from the business.”

This unusual request probably stemmed from the fact that McBrayer had been an elder in the Presbyterian Church, a denomination that frowned on drinking, and personally was a tee-totaler. His widow Mary also had developed strong objections to alcohol. Moore, as manager of the distillery and with Mary co-executor of the Judge’s will, attempted to nullify the clause. He argued that the McBrayer name was worth at least $200,000 to the Judge’s grandchildren (millions today). Nonetheless, Mary took him to court.

When a lower court agreed with her, Moore appealed to the Kentucky Supreme Court. The judges there were more sympathetic, apparently well acquainted with McBrayer’s bourbon. While their opinion suggested that the quality of the whiskey had suffered since the Judge’s death, they agreed with Moore that he had never intended to disadvantage his beloved grandchildren. The McBrayer name was retained.  By persisting Moore had perpetuated a Kentucky legend.

Daniel Moore was born in Mercer County, Kentucky in January 1847, from a distinguished English family.  His spacious boyhood home, shown here was called “Moorland.” His father, a physician, horse breeder and “gentleman” farmer, could afford to have young Daniel educated by private tutors, attend Center College in Danville, and study law under an eminent Kentucky barrister.  Moore passed the bar but never practiced.  Instead, according to one biographer, “…He used his legal knowledge altogether in handling his extensive business affairs.”

From the outset of his career, Moore was drawn to distilling.  About the age of 25, he built the distillery shown above.  It was located five miles east of the Harrodsburg Courthouse at Shawnee Run Creek on the turnpike between Danville and Pleasant Hill, Kentucky.  Distillery water originated in a pristine stream issuing from a cave where Daniel Boone famously had spent the winter of 1769-1770.  By the mid-1880s, Moore’s distillery was mashing 250 bushels a day and had two bonded warehouses with a total capacity of 12,500 barrels. 

 

Following McBrayer’s death Moore sold his own distillery to the Dowling Brothers and devoted his energies to managing the McBrayer Lawrenceburg plant.  Early in the 1900s, however, Moore sold the McBrayer distillery to the Kentucky Distilleries & Warehouse Company, one of the expressions of the monopolistic “Whiskey Trust.”  He continued to manage the facility and the Trust was happy to have title to prestigious McBrayer’s bourbon.

In 1891 Moore found a woman to provide mothering for his three minor children.  She was Minnie Ball, descended from the same family as the mother of George Washington.  They were married in her home in Versailles, Kentucky, and would go on to have two girls of their own.  Shown here is a portion of a family photo that pictures Daniel, Minnie and their daughter, Anita.

Meanwhile Moore was increasingly busy in other activities.  In 1881 he was elected on the Democratic ticket to represent the 20th District in the Kentucky State Legislature.  There he is said to have performed “his duties in an intelligent and capable manner and eliciting the commendation of his constituents.”  Despite being a distiller, Moore pushed through a bill levying a special tax on Kentucky whiskey to be used for schools. He also had become the largest individual stockholder in the Mercer National Bank and from 1892 to 1908 served as its president.

A “gentleman” farmer, Moore was responsible for overseeing the planting and harvesting of cotton in Mississippi on three plantations totaling thousand of acres originally accrued by his father.  He also owned several thousand acres of timberland in that state and supervised the logging.  His work there led him to built a spacious home on one cotton plantation where he, Minnie and the children spent the winter months.  Described as a “nature lover,” Moore then turned his attention to Colorado, the Rockies and the  “spiritual uplift of the mountain solitudes.”  In 1881 he bought a ranch of 6,000 acres in North Park, Colorado.  According to a biographer he then “…Introduced some of the finest cattle and horses, making it a center of improved livestock in the far West….”  

Although these activities took him away from Kentucky about half the year, Moore determined to built Minnie and their family a spectacular home on Lexington Pike near Harrodsburg, a structure, shown here, that still stands as a landmark.  Taking five years to build and costing the equivalent of $1.4 million, the Romanesque Revival mansion features a verandah of large semicircular arches on short round pillars of polished granite with carved limestone capitals.  Among its other elegant features is a four story tower crowned by a parapet.  

Moore was living there when he developed heart trouble as he approached his mid-60s.  His heavy work schedule presumably had begun to catch up to him.  After several months of decline, Daniel died on October 20, 1916.  His death certificate read “organic heart disease.”  He was buried in Harrodsburg’s Spring Hill Cemetery, Section S, Lot 29, below a large cross.  

For the next two decades, Minnie Moore took up where Daniel had left off, running Mississippi cotton plantations, the stock ranch in Colorado and a farm in Kentucky where she supervised tobacco production and the breeding of quality livestock.  One observer commented:  “Mrs. Moore since the death of her husband has given convincing evidence of the possession of unusual business talents and has handled her extensive affairs with admirable judgment and efficiency.”

Of Daniel Moore a fitting testimony appeared in “Kentucky: A History of the State,” by Battle, Perrin, & Kniffin, 4th ed., 1887:  The authors wrote: “Few men have more friends, or retain them better than Senator Moore….He is liberal and generous to a fault, a representative of true Bourbon Democracy, of strict integrity, and thorough honesty of purpose and deed. As a business man he has by his success in other fields reflected great credit upon his native State of Kentucky.”

To this encomium I would add that Moore’s court battle to keep the McBreyer name before the drinking public has paid dividends down to the present day.  Descendants have formed an organization called McBreyer Legacy Spirits and in limited quantities have issued a bourbon in his name.  If Moore had not challenged the Judge’s will, this welcome development might well have been impossible.

Notes:  This post was gathered from a wide variety of sources.  Unless otherwise indicated in the text, direct quotes are from “A History of Kentucky and Kentuckians,”  by C. Polk Johnson, 4th edition. 1912.