Author name: Jack Sullivan

 

“It is safe to say that no man was more generally beloved in Davenport than Mr. Hill.”   From the Davenport, Iowa, Democrat & Times, February 13, 1924.

Captured during the Civil War and on the brink of death in a notorious Confederate prison, John Hill, a German immigrant, survived to become a major figure in the liquor trade and community life of Davenport, Iowa.  Shown here, Hill secured his place in Iowa history by his role in litigation that brought down the state’s prohibition law, known by the “wets” as the “Davenport Case” and by “drys” as “The Case from Hell.”

John was born in Frankfort, Germany in April 1840 to Margaret Ditzenberger and Conrad Hill, a government official.   After receiving a quality elementary and secondary education,  Hill left Germany at age 16 for America about 1856, settling in Davenport, a city with a sizable German population.  There he learned the cabinet maker’s trade, before moving to Muscatine, Iowa, until 1861 and the coming of the Civil War.  

The Civil War and Prison

The Roster & Record of Iowa Soldiers in the War of Rebellion records that Hill enlisted in Company C of the Iowa 35th Infantry Regiment in September 1862.  He would rise to the rank of sergeant over the next few months when the 35th saw considerable hot combat as the Union army thrust deep into Mississippi and Louisiana. At some undisclosed point in this campaign Sgt. Hill was captured.  He was sent to the Confederate’s notorious Libby Prison in Richmond, Virginia, known for its overcrowding, lack of sanitation and heavy mortality.  

This is how Libby Prison has been described:  “Prisoners were huddled there like cattle, being so crowded that they could not lie down even to sleep.  There was no heat of any kind and with the chilly dampness and other discomforts, not to mention the lack of food and water…made it a veritable hell-hole….”  Upon arrival, Hill joined in digging an escape tunnel using bare hands and bits of boards.  When the day of escape came, however, he was too sick and feeble to crawl out and was forced to remain behind.   Hill survived Libby Prison, likely released in a prisoner exchange, and returned to the 35th Iowa.  He mustered out in Davenport in June 1865.  This time he stayed in the city, shown here about 1865.

Post War Activities

Honored for his war service by the Germanic population, Hill was made manager of Davenport’s central Turner Hall, shown here.  He proved to be a success as a proprietor.  One account says:  “In the good days, sport, old timers from over the Rhine would gather at the old Turner hall in the afternoon to greet young John Hill with a genial Goondacht!…”

Hill also was having a personal life.  In April 1867, John was married to Maria S. Kaehler, four years younger than he.  Like her husband, Maria  had been born in Germany and immigrated with her parents.  The Hills would have five children, of whom three survived to adulthood.  

Perhaps it was the impetus of his growing family that persuaded John to leave Turner Hall in 1876 to join local businessman Henning J. Witt in organizing a mineral water factory at 718 W. Second St.  Expanding over time the company added the manufacture of soda water and bottled beer, ale, porter and cider.  Shown below is a blob top bottle and an enlarged label advertising “Hill & Witt.”

By 1879 Hill had left the partnership and returned to managing the Turner Hall.  Again his tenure made him many friends, but after some eight years on the job, he once again grew restless.  His extensive experience with food and liquor led to a logical conclusion and he opened Hill’s Bar and Cafe on Davenport’s Main Street.

As Saloonkeeper

The Davenport Democrat & Leader described this “watering hole”:  “The Hill establishment, by reason of the cordiality and good fellowship of the proprietor, and the excellent service which always characterized its management became one of the most famous stands of its kind in the Middle West.”  The newspaper described the saloon as one that strangers to town would seek out because of its reputation.

The proprietor made sure that he also was drawing in locals by maintaining memberships in fraternal organizations, including the Masons, Knights of Pythias, Elks and Turner Society. As a Civil War veteran. Hill was particularly active in the Grand Army of the Republic (G.A.R.)  He was a regular at the organization’s national conventions and extended special courtesies to its members, including gifting them with commemorative shot glasses.

At the same time, however, he could see the inroads being made by prohibitionary forces in Iowa.  In 1880 the State Legislature passed a resolution amending the Iowa Constitution to prohibit the manufacture and sale of intoxicating liquors.  It was followed in 1882 by a statewide referendum in which voters concurred.  That year the “drys” met in convention in Des Moines.  There they addressed the saloonkeepers and liquor dealer of Iowa “urging them to discontinue a business that had been outlawed by a vote of the people and the laws and Constitution of the State.”  John Hill’s response:  “Not so fast!”

“The Case from Hell”

Hill and Henry Koehler, shown here, had hatched a plan.  Along with R. Lange, a partner with Koehler in a Davenport brewery, they thought knew a way to bring down the new prohibitionary laws.  The brewers brought a suit against Hill to recover $100 for a quantity of beer they had sold him and for which he allegedly had never paid.  Hill facetiously argued in his defense that he could not be lawfully compelled to pay for beer sold in violation of the state constitution.

Koehler and Lange then argued that the amendment had not been passed and ratified in the manner stipulated by the Iowa Constitution.  No friend of prohibition, Judge Walter I. Hayes of the County District Court, ruled in favor of  Koehler and Lange, rejected a faux appeal from Hill, and in January 1882 ruled the amendment invalid.

A  shock wave went through the Hawkeye State.  From a case that initially had drawn little attention, now Hill and the brewers were figures of discussion statewide.  Liquor interests hailed them for what came to be known as the “Davenport Case.”  Alarm bells ringing loudly, prohibitionist reviled their effort as “The Case from Hell.”  All parties headed to the Iowa Supreme Court.

As one history of Iowa put it:  “The friends of prohibition were now thoroughly aroused to the danger….”   They brought in as their advocate a distinguished former judge.  The governor, a “dry,” dispatched the Iowa attorney general to appear for the state.  Now funded by the liquor trade statewide,  the other side also mounted a formidable legal team.

After hearing extensive arguments in January 1883, the Iowa Supreme Court with only a single dissent affirmed the decision of Judge Hayes:  the amendment was invalid.  While prohibitionists were left to excoriate the majority judges,  Iowa’s liquor dealers and saloons had been granted a reprieve.  Although the legislature subsequently passed another prohibitionary law, it was simply allowed local option, not a statewide mandate.  Davenport being safely “wet,” its whiskey men enjoyed another 31 years in business.  Only in 1914 did Iowa’s “drys” at last succeeded in a complete state ban on alcohol.

The Later Years

Following his triumph in the Davenport Case, Hill continued operating his high quality saloon and restaurant until about 1900.  Shown here in his elder years, he retired from business, celebrated with Maria their golden wedding anniversary, enjoyed their five grandchildren and was a well-recognized figure around Davenport.

Eventually Hill became afflicted by heart problems and may have shown some signs of dementia.   As his condition worsened in January 1924, he had been confined to bed for only a short time when he died on February 12, 1924.  He was 83.  Hill’s funeral in his home and burial in Davenport’s Fairmont Cemetery were private with only his widow, family, and a few invited guest attending.  His gravestone is shown below.

No final word about this whiskey man could be more eloquent than an excerpt from his obituary in the Davenport Democrat & Leader:  “Mr. Hill was a true gentleman in every sense of the word….He possessed a largeness of mind, generosity, and sympathy which endeared him to all with whom he came in contact.  It is safe to say that no man was more generally beloved in Davenport than Mr. Hill.”

Note:  This post is drawn from a variety of sources, two of which stand out:  John  Hill’s February 13th obituary on the front page of the Davenport Democrat & Leader and documents from “Koehler & Lange vs. Hill.”

  

 

 Foreword:  Among individuals labeled as “whiskey men” on this blog are several that through their craftsmanship have provided the pre-1920 liquor trade with distinctive artifacts to advertise and sell alcoholic beverages.  Most were anonymous artisans whose names and accomplishments had never before been recorded or acknowledged.  The vignette that follows is about a possible exception.

Just as Louis Comfort Tiffany is hailed as the America’s premier artist in crafting glass into lamps and shades, so a Maryland artist in glass should be recognized as the top creator of etched barware, including much-collected pre-Prohibition whiskey shot glasses. His name was George Troug, shown here.

Troug was born in Verona, Italy, in 1861. After attending school in Switzerland, he emigrated to the United States in 1883. He found his way to Cumberland, Maryland, at the time a thriving center for glass production. Troug worked at several glass manufacturing plants, all the time saving his money and planning to own his own factory. In 1893 his dream materialized and he opened the Maryland Glass Etching Works. His letterhead illustration indicated a substantial operation. 

Within a few months Troug was advertising in trade journals as being able to provide fine and fancy etched glassware for brewers, distillers and innkeepers.  He claimed among his customers two prestigious Milwaukee breweries, Pabst and Schlitz.  He was making beer glasses for them etched with their names.

While many Maryland Glass Etching Works products remained unsigned and thus unrecognized as Troug designs, some glassware was graced with his “G T” initials.  His mark frequently is small and hard to find. Yet another way of identifying Troug products is through his sketchbook, parts of which have been salvaged. It also is interesting to see his original drawings as they ultimately took shape on round glass surfaces.

Distiller Sam Alschul of Springfield, Ohio, was a master at merchandising his multiple whiskey brands. [See post of  May 15, 2011.] He turned to Maryland Glass Etching for shot glasses advertising his “Old School Rye.” Troug obliged with a drawing and turned it into a superior etched glass. Notice, however, the misspelling of “school” in the drawing.

 

Another example is Troug’s initial design of Stag Whiskey barware for E. Eising Co. of New York (1880-1906).  Although the basic design is similar to the shot, the typography used for the glass is significantly different.  The drawing has “Stag” in plain letters and “Whiskey” in fancy ones. The finished shot glass shows just the opposite typography.

Another clue to Troug inspired glasses are designs copied on tissue paper for later transfer to metal production plates, illustrations that have been conserved by Troug collectors.  Among the images shown on these scraps is one for a “Belle of Anderson” shot glass. The item itself shows the realized design commissioned by Eisen Brothers Co. of Kansas City (1906-1916).

Another sketch depicts Jed Clayton Old Whiskey from Rheimstrom Bros. of Cincinnati (1876-1917). [See post of June 28,2017.] This image too is somewhat altered on the finished shot glass. Other identified Troug “shots” include the “Regulator” from a St. Louis mercantile company and a fanciful pig. 

Details of Troug’s personal life are scant. His energies appear to have been focussed narrowly on his artistry and running his glass etching business.  In 1889 at the age of 28, he married Barbara A. Wegman, a woman seven years younger who had been born in Maryland of a German immigrant family.  Georg and Barbara would have one child, Rita Victoria, born a year after their marriage. 

As Maryland Glass Etching Works reputation grew during the late 1800s and early 1900s, so George Troug became a wealthy man. Known for his spendthrift habits, at the height of his career he purchased a simple late 19th-century residence and in 1903 contracted with a well-known Cumberland architect, Wright Butler, to undertake a extensive and lavish remodeling at the then astonishing cost of $44,000.

The exterior design featured a recessed entrance with an arcade of Gothic arches, corner bay windows on the second floor and roof cresting.  Inside additions included a ballroom with a pool table that converted into an upholstered sofa and an elaborate self-contained water system. The house exhibited Troug’s artistic skills, featuring etched, engraved, stained, colored and painted glass of his design, as well as other ornate features. The expense may well have been Troug’s downfall. He was forced to sell the house in 1909 and two years later found his company forced into bankruptcy.  When he died in 1931 at the age of seventy, Troug is said to have been destitute. 

Georg Troug’s sad ending cannot dim his achievements in glass.  During the 18 years that the Maryland Glass Etching Works was in business, the German immigrant was responsible for some of America’s most innovative and desirable pre-Prohibition barware.  His legacy is confirmed in the avid way collectors of shot glasses check each item closely with a magnifying glass in the hope of finding a tiny “GT” etched somewhere on the surface.

Notes: The barware shown here is through the courtesy of Robin Preston of the pre-pro.com website, himself a collector of Troug shot glasses. For anyone wishing to know more about this designer, Dale Murschell, a Cumberland historian, has written a book entitled, George Troug and His Art.  Unfortunately the book now is out of print and difficult to find.

 

Foreword:  The heyday of attempts at monopolies in the America whiskey trade was relative short.  Two were important:  A Midwest “Trust” organized in 1887 and centered in Illinois that failed by 1898 through bad management and a Kentucky/New York cartel begun in the 1890s that flourished until about 1910, then essentially stalled.  Remnants, however, hung around until 1920 when National Prohibition was imposed.  Among the many problem the Trusts faced was active opposition by distillers and whiskey “rectifiers” (blenders) to their attempts to “corner the market” and drive up liquor prices.  Below are brief stories of whiskey men who opposed the monopolists and helped bring them down.

Described by his hometown newspaper as “irrepressible” and “indispensable,” to the Kansas City business community, Max Reefer, shown here, had been in the liquor business for three years when the first Whiskey Trust appeared.  An immigrant from Austria, he began his career in the U.S. as an advertising guru.  After the  birth of his first child in 1863, Reefer with his family moved from St. Louis 250 miles west across Missouri to Kansas City.  There, at the age of 33, he set up a liquor house, calling it “Green Mountain Distillery.”  His business plan was to advertise his whiskey repeatedly in national magazines where he emphasized mail order sales.  The plan worked and Reefer built a large  clientele.

He soon came in conflict with the Whiskey Trust.  Reefer was not a distiller, but a “rectifier,” that is, receiving whiskey by the barrel, blending it on his premises, and bottling it under his own label for shipping.  Rectifiers often found themselves at the mercy of the Whiskey Trust.  The Trust controlled a large percentage of existing whiskey stocks and hiked prices to the blenders.  If they refused to pay, they ultimately ran out of raw product, adding to whiskey shortages — the delight of the Trust.  As Reefer knew, the Trust would have been very happy to put Green Mountain and its owner out of business.  

Reefer struck back.  Apparently able to obtain enough liquor for his blends, he advertised vigorously that he could undersell the Trust.  “The whiskey we send is distilled from the purest grain (no seconds), is matured and ripened in wood and will cost you but a few cents over $2.00 per gallon.  We guarantee that no Trust house ever sold the same quality goods for less than $3.00 to $4.00.”   He went a step further by stating his anti-Trust views on his whiskey labels.  To his dying day at age 68 in 1916 Reefer maintained his attack on the Trusts and likely watched with some glee as th declined.

A major target of the monopolists were Kentucky distillers, among them J. W. Morton Field of Owensboro.  His small distillery, shown below, had attracted the attention of the KY/NY Trust.  “Front men” offered to buy 3,000 barrels of whiskey from J. W. M. Field & Sons over five years and then, under specified conditions, an additional 5,000 barrels annually over the next ten years.  Field could produce only 500 barrels for his own use and sale.  If he exceeded that amount, he would pay a penalty of $5 per barrel.  Believing there would be great advantage in having a guaranteed customer for his whiskey for 15 years,  the Owensboro distiller agreed. 

 

As the Trust’s power grew, some Kentucky distillers had begun to balk at the idea of a whiskey monopoly.  Field was among them.  When the pseudo buyers demanded he agree to transferring his contract to the Trust, he said an emphatic NO. In retaliation for Field’s refusal, they refused to take any more of his production, leaving the Owensboro distiller with unsold stocks.  Seemingly with no other choice, Field sued in 1902.  He had the wisdom to hire as his attorney, William Lindsay, a former chief justice of the Kentucky Supreme Court.   Although the suit was filed in the U.S. Circuit Court in New York, not in Kentucky, Lindsay persuaded the jury to give the distiller a judgment for damages in the amount of $50,000 (equiv. $1.25 million today).  It was a decisive blow against the Trust.  

Although J.W.M. Field & Co had won, the joy of victory was short-lived for Mort Field.  In August of 1903, he died at the age of 58.   Moreover,  family elation at having beaten the monopoly was short-lived when the  “deep pockets” Trust appealed the decision to the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.  This time Lindsay was not as effective. That panel decided that the whiskey the Fields could not sell and had stored in his warehouses actually was an asset, gaining value as it aged.  Thus no damage had been done to the Owensboro distiller.  The court nixed the payment and called for a new trial.  There is no evidence that it ever occurred. 

The Wathen family were whiskey pioneers in Kentucky whose interaction with the  KY/NY Trust, known officially as the Kentucky Distilleries and Warehouse Company, were, simply put, “convoluted.”  Three Wathen brothers in 1880 built a large distillery in Louisville.  They experienced great success and reinvested in the company by installing one of the first continuous column stills in Kentucky and steam heat in the warehouses.  J. A. Wathen joined his brothers in 1887 to manage the facility.

In April, 1899, for reason unknown, the Wathens sold the distillery to the Trust.  After the sale J. A. Wathen stayed with organization as an employee.  In a gambit that likely occasioned uncomfortable sibling interactions, his brother J. B. Wathen masterminded the formation of a new distillery for his young sons – called “R. E. Wathen & Co.” named after his eldest boy, only 22 at the time. This facility immediately began to compete with Trust.  The new Wathen distillery used the brand names “Ky. Credential” and “Honeycomb.”  Those labels sounded suspiciously like the brand names “Ky. Criterion” and “Honeymoon,” that the Wathen family had sold to the Trust along with their distillery.

In 1901 the Trust asked for an injunction on the Wathens’ further use of the brands.  During the trial the Trust’s lawyers conceded that the liquor wholesalers and others obtaining these products likely were not confused by the similarity of names used by the new Wathen distillery, but argued that the labels still represented an infringement.  In an expansion of brand name rights, the court agreed, enjoining the Wathens from using “Ky. Credential” and “Honeycomb.”  The ruling held that the brands unfairly impinged on the brands just acquired by the Trust, “even though consumers were not necessarily deceived.”  

Although the Wathens had lost this fight, as author Brian Haraa has expressed it, the family had administered the Trust “a clear “poke in the eye.”

Note:  The Wathen story is adapted from a post by Atty. Brian Haraa on his “Sippin’ Corn” blog.  Brian graciously agreed to my reprinting his piece on this blog where it appeared August 1, 2020.   He treats the Wathen family at greater length in his informative 2018 book, “Bourbon Justice:  How Whiskey Law Shaped America.”   Longer accounts appear at this website on Max Reefer, March 17, 2019, and J.W. Morton Field, January 31, 2016.

  

 

From modest beginnings, this website now has had more than 1,160,000 views from all over the world.  The blog also has received some 2,150 comments, to most of which I have responded.  Many have assisted me in correcting or enhancing an original post.  The site now has 329 “followers,” to whom I am  grateful for their continuing interest.  

When I began in 2011, I projected a post every couple of weeks.  As the stories multiplied I  soon began adding a new vignette every four days, a practice suggested by the continuing flow of good “whiskey men” yarns.  That flow has encouraged me to attempt to aim for 1,000 posts by 2023.

At 86 years old, it is hard to look beyond that goal.  My plan is to will the entire body of material to the Federation of Historical Bottle Collectors for the digital library connected to its online FOHBC Virtual Museum of Historical Bottles and Glass (https://www.fohbc.org › virtual-museum).  That way the research represented here can be preserved for the future.

For this 900th post I have chosen the story of Jeremiah Joseph O’Connor of Elmira, New York.  Although his story may lack the drama of other whiskey men’s lives,  O’Connor epitomizes those individuals who immigrated to the United States, found a career in the liquor trade and went on to help build their communities — and by doing so, America.  O’Connor was, in other words, a model whiskey man.

*****

 J.J. “Jerry” O’Connor, shown here, was born in Killarney, County Kerry, Ireland, on Christmas Day, 1844, the son of Denis and Mary Reardon O’Connor.  Born during the Irish Famine and British suppression his early days may have been ones of poverty.  In 1850, at the age of three, his parents emigrated from Ireland to Canada where Jerry grew up and was educated.  At age 19, the youth is recorded moving from Whitby, Ontario, to Elmira, New York.

Intelligent and ambitious, O’Conner’s early career included teaching in a Catholic grade school, eventually being raised to principal.  His reputed talent as a educator brought him to the attention of the upwardly mobile Irish-American community and other residents.  He also found a bride in Elmira, wedding Mary Purcell, a woman of Irish immigrant parents, shown here in middle age.   At the time of their 1871 nuptials, according to census data, Jerry was 27 and Mary was 17.  Over the next 17 years the couple would have eight children, all of whom seem to have lived to maturity.

Perhaps it was the demands of his growing family that spurred O’Connor to leave a career in education and by the early 1870s join an older brother, Dennis, in a liquor business they called O’Connor Brothers, located at 108 Water Street.  As an active and articulate Democrat, Jerry also came to the attention of City Hall.  When the position of “city chamberlain” was created in 1876, O’Connor was the first appointee.  The chamberlain was Elmira’s chief fiscal officer, custodian of all city funds and responsible for general accounting functions.  O’Connor proved an inspired choice.  As the initial holder of the office it fell to him to devise systems for accounts payable, payroll, budget monitoring, investing city funds, financial reporting, and collection of real estate taxes.  Accord to a biographer, O’Connor “put the financial system in shape” and his methods were maintained long after he left the post in 1879.

That move almost certainly was occasioned by the sickness and death of his brother, Dennis in February 1879.  Now Jerry had full responsibility for the liquor house.  In time he changed the name to “Jeremiah J. O’Connor – Wholesale Liquor and Wine.”  To customers like saloons, restaurant and hotels, he was providing whiskey obtained by the barrel, decanted on premises and sold in ceramic jugs.  His early containers, obtained from the W. Farrington pottery of Elmira, were graced by attractive decoration, as below.  In time, he moved to more utilitarian jugs, as shown below.

Like many whiskey wholesalers O’Connor marketed his own proprietary brand of whiskey, called “Walton.”  This liquor would have been supplied to him by a nearby distillery to a recipe he dictated or, more likely, blended on his premises.  A practice in the trade was to reward special customers with items such as shot glasses advertising such house brands.  O’Connor’s giveaway was particularly stylish.  As business flourished he relocated to larger quarters at 414-416 Carroll Street.

In the meantime O’Connor’s ability and accomplishments had advanced him to major roles in the Democratic Party.  Following an appointment to the Elmira Board of Heath for two years, he was put forward as the Democratic candidate for the New York General Assembly in 1883.  He won and served two terms, during which his talent as “a public speaker of no mean ability” brought him notice.  At the 1885 state Democrtic convention, O’Connor was chosen to place the party candidate for governor in nomination, a singular tribute to his eloquence.

Much of this whiskey man’s attention was directed toward the Ireland of his heritage, primarily through his role in the U.S. chapter of the Irish Land League, an organization to protect Irish farmers from capricious evictions by British landlords.  Through peaceful means the League sought to establish “three F’s”: fair rent, fixity of tenure, and free sale of the right of occupancy.  O’Connor was a member of the U.S. Executive Committee, and its treasurer who raised the equivalent in today’s dollar of over $400,000 for the poor in Ireland.

O’Connor’s growing wealth from liquor sales also allowed him to make outside investments.  In 1885 he was among the Elmira businessmen who founded the Elmira Daily Free Press, a newspaper that survived for 22 years before being merged with another publication.  He also was president of the Grand Forks North Dakota Land and Investment Co.  Thousands of settlers had been attracted to the Dakota Territory in the 1870s and 1880s for its cheap land. Companies like O’Connor’s helped settlers established small family farms.

Financial interests increasingly called O’Connor to New York City.  There in 1910, he fell down the steps of a Manhattan subway and was severely injured.  When the damage proved permanently disabling, he directed the 1912 incorporation of the Jeremiah J. O’Connor liquor company.  As directors he appointed his wife Mary and one of his sons, 23-year-old Charles Borromeo O’Connor.   Aware that his injuries might lead to complete incapacity or death, Jerry wisely had looked to the future.  It was not long in coming.  He died on November 23, 1913, at the age of 68 and was buried in Elmira’s St. Peter and Paul Cemetery.  His headstone is shown here.

O’Connor’s death merited front page headlines in the Free Press and other Elmira publications.  Hailed as a “notable Elmiran,” his obituaries celebrated the life of an immigrant who had contributed significantly to the development of the city.  His liquor house continued on after his death with the widowed Mary as vice president and treasurer, Charles as secretary, and a non-family member as manager.  After 1917 the O’Connor liquor house disappeared from Elmira directories.

Note:  The major source of this post were from an internet copy of the book, “A History of the Valley and County of Chemung,” by Ausburn Towner, dated 1892. Brief quoted material is from that history.  That resource was supplemented by Elmira newspaper stories and genealogical websites.

 Fans of the movie version of Anne Rice’s “Interview with the Vampire” will recognize at right the New Orleans above-ground tomb of her blood-sucking hero, Lestat.  When visiting Lafayette Cemetery #1, tourists often seek out the cast-iron crypt and wonder who actually is interred there.  It is Otto Henry Karstendieck, a liquor dealer whose life, like Lestat’s, contained more than sufficient horror, death and deception to make his tale worth telling.  Otto’s story, in contrast to Rice’s, is non-fiction.

Otto was born on April 21, 1823, in Bremen, Germany, the son of Heinrich and Anna Metta Karstendiek.  Of his early life and education the record is blank, as well as is the exact date of his coming to America, apparently around 1850.   What propelled him to New Orleans similarly is obscure.  The first public record I can find is 1856 when he was 33 years old and New Orleans was a booming city, shown below.  In May of that year Otto married Delia Cecelia Salomon, whose claim to fame was being the sister of the first “Rex” of the Mardi Gras parade. Over the next eight years the couple would have five children, two daughters and three sons.

Meanwhile Otto was demonstrating his abilities as a liquor and wine dealer, claiming his liquor house origin as 1850.  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 warehouses, each four stories high, a block long and 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 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.

Otto does not seem to have been on the premises when the fire occurred.  While he sustained the loss of his buildings and some stock, 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.

It is likely that among the dead and injured were Karstendiek & Co. employeeswhose deaths Otto would have mourned as he attempted to collect on his insurance and rebuild his business at a new location on Tchoupoulas Street.   He continued to advertise widely as:  “Dealers in Old Bourbon, Rye. Monogahela. Tennessee white, Roblnson county, White Wheat, and common whiskey.” 

The advent of the Civil War proved a boon to Otto.  Although initially revenues in the city fell with Union occupation, a “welfare state” was created by federal authorities to alleviate “the deplorable state of destitution and hunger of the mechanics and working classes of the city.”  It was paid for by a special tax on the wealthy and businesses. Revenues allowed the military government to employ 2,000 men daily to clean up the city.  The levy also generated relief payments to 11,000 families, most of whom were Irish and German. Moreover, Union forces in New Orleans and vicinity grew to 17,800.  The customer base for Otto’s liquor swelled.

The end of the Civil War brought a double setback.  After the birth of their fifth child, the health of Otto’s wife Delia declined and after just nine years of marriage in November 1865 she died at the age of 29.   Her husband was left with the sole care of five children, the oldest nine, the youngest a toddler.  Five years later Otto remarried.  His new spouse was Ella Lavernia Stoddard from Albany, New York.  They would have one son.

The second blow was the reduced revenues Otto was facing in New Orleans during Reconstruction.  Gone were the subsidies for workers and the payroll of a large standing army.  The customer base for Karstendiek & Company dwindled sharply.  Otto decided to “go to the dark side.”  He joined in what came to be known as “The Whiskey Ring,”  a massive scheme to cheat the federal government of millions of dollars in liquor revenues.  Hatched in 1871 by a top Grant Administration revenue official in St. Louis, the conspiracy had its tentacles in Chicago, Milwaukee, Cincinnati, and stretched south to New Orleans.

There President Grant had appointed his wife’s brother-in -law, Col. James B. Case, as collector of customs for the port.  Casey was quick to see the ease and financial possibilities of skimming off illicit cash from liquor taxes.  He recruited a handful of New Orleans distillers and liquor dealers to assist him in the scheme.  Among them was Otto Karstendiek.

In addition to selling whiskey and other alcoholic products at wholesale and retail, 

Otto was a “rectifier,”  that is, someone blending raw whiskeys on his premises in order to achieve a specific color, smoothness and taste.  Because the blending added value to the product, rectifiers were required to keep detailed records and were taxed on the amount of product blended.  By variety of mean, from corrupt federal “gaugers” who falsified production or the use of fraudulent revenue stamps, the U.S. Treasury was cheated out of millions.

The Whiskey Ring came to abrupt halt on May 10, 1875, when U.S. Secretary of the Treasury Benjamin Bristow, working without the knowledge of President Grant, broke up the tightly connected and politically powerful cabal. He used secret agents from outside the Treasury Department to conduct a series of raids across the country on May 10, 1875.  Among those arrested was Otto Karstendiek.

Otto and his co-conspirators did not come to trial until almost a full year after the raid.  In the interim the German whiskey man had suffered another heartbreaking loss.  Ella, his wife of just four years, died in September 1875, leaving him with a sixth motherless child.  At his trial in the U.S. Circuit for the District of Louisiana in May 1875,  Otto and five of his co-conspirators were found guilty and sentenced. James Casey was not among them.  The prisoners were fined from $1,000 to $6,000 and sentenced to prison variably from six to sixteen months.  Otto was assessed $1000 and maximum prison time.

  

All six were sent to the State Penitentiary at Moundsville, West Virginia, shown here, more than 1,000 miles from Otto’s New Orleans home. He must have been anguished at serving time so far from his children, now to be looked after by others.  Although his liquor house was shut briefly as the result of his folly, Otto still had resources.  While serving time at Moundsville, he hired a lawyer and thus was born a case before the U.S. Supreme Court at its 1876 October term, entitled “Ex Parte Karstendiek.”

His lawyer argued that the decision to send Otto and the others out of Louisiana was not authorized by law and should be voided.  The U.S. Solicitor General countered that when no suitable prison facilities could be found in the state where the felony occurred, the government was justified in sending prisoners elsewhere.  With Chief Justice Morrison Waite, right, writing the decision, the high court concluded that:  “So long as the State [West Virginia] permits him to remain in its prison as the prisoner of the United States, and does not object to his detention by its officers, he is rightfully detained on custody under a sentence lawfully passed.”  Otto spent his 16 months a long way from his family.

Judge Waite had not seen the last of Otto Karstendiek.  In 1877 the whiskey man, now free, was back before the Supreme Court.  This time he was objecting to the seizure of his liquor stocks and their forfeiture to the federal government. In a case entitled “United States v. Two Hundred Barrels of Whiskey,” Otto demanded that the liquor be returned to him.  His lawyer spun a convoluted argument about conflicting federal rules that required immediate release of the whiskey.  Once again Waite wrote the opinion.  Lower federal courts had upheld such forfeitures. The Supreme Court affirmed them.  Otto went home without his 200 barrels.

Unlike other liquor houses whose owners were implicated in the Whiskey Ring, Otto’s business did not disappear.  While his father was incarcerated, his eldest son, Henry S. Karstendiek, shown here, took over running what remained of his father’s business.  The name was changed to “O.H. Karstendiek Son Company.”   Otto’s brother John also began clerking in the establishment that remained on Tchoupoulas Street.  Henry, along with younger members of the family, continued living with their disgraced father. The last directory entry for the Karstendiek liquor house was 1879.  In the 1880 census Otto gave his occupation as “grocer.” 

Otto died on April 21, 1883, quite unusually exactly 60 years to the day of his birth. His funeral was private, conducted at John’s home with only friends of the family invited to attend.  Then the deceased was taken to the site of the cast iron crypt in Lafayette Cemetery #1, said to have been brought from Germany by Otto after a visit to the Continent. 

 

One of only sixteen iron “houses of the dead,” in all New Orleans and a tourist attraction because of Anne Rice’s vampire novels, the structure in 2016 badly needed repairs estimated at from $50,000 to $70,000.  A fundraiser featured people in costumes and a visit by two of Otto’s descendants from Texas.   They told a reporter they had no idea who actually was buried inside and hoped the restoration would reveal some answers.  When the work began we can assume that, unlike Rice’s Lestat, Otto Karstendiek did not come walking out.

Notes:  This post was prompted from seeing a Karstendiek letterhead on a note written in German to the manager of the Menger Hotel in New Orleans not long after the Civil War. The oddness of the piece, on sale on eBay, caused me to do some research on Otto.  It led me to the tragic fire, the Whiskey Ring, and other events in this whiskey man’s life.  This story emerged.

On May 29, 1919, seven months and and one day before the imposition of National Prohibition on America, the Boston Globe informed it readers:  “Prohibition claims its first victim in Boston today when John Fennell will lock up for all time his long famed wine shop.”  The newspaper quoted Fennell opining:   “Prohibition is coming and you can’t stop it.  It’s coming like a great wave headed for the bow of a ship and its going to break soon.  But it’s going to miss me.”   Was there something untold behind Fennell’s bravado?  The Globe hinted as much.

If Fennell was telling the truth, he was considerably more prescient than most of his fellow whiskey dealers around the country.  In most locales going dry, the liquor houses and saloons hung on until the clock chimed midnight on their trade.  Some had “fire sales” at the end, steeply discounting their bottles and jugs.  Others were left with large supplies of whiskey, always in danger of confiscation by authorities and destroyed.  Those stashes might be sent abroad, buried in the cellar or sold under the counter.  

Fennell by his forethought seemingly escaped those problematic consequences.But had he?  He boasted about register sales of $200,000 in the past several weeks, equivalent to $3.16 million in today’s dollar, saying: “Six weeks ago I said to myself l could never unload my stock by this time.  But here I am cleaned out.  Not a bottle in the shop.”    Yet the Globe reporter clearly had doubts.  He noted that some jugs, bottles and “ambrosial liquids” were still visible. “Are the bugs loading up?”  he speculated.  Was this claim just Irish “blarney”?

Fennell was born in Dublin, Ireland, in 1853, according to naturalization records, a date that is confirmed on his gravestone.  Arriving in North America in his 20s,  the immigrant’s initial destination appears to have been St. John’s, British Columbia. There he went to work for a wholesale liquor and beer dealer named Thomas Furlong, who also appears to have been his brother-in-law.  Fennell would work for Furlong for a dozen years learning the liquor trade in Canada.  Although I cannot find a photo, a passport described the Irishman standing 5 feet, 6.5 inches tall, with gray eyes, brown hair and tawny skin.

Established in business as early as 1862, Furlong appears to have run a successful enterprise.  His flagship brand was “Furlong’s Irish Malt Whiskey.”  He advertised it as “celebrated Dublin malt whiskey,” claiming that it rivaled the finest cognac brands:  “It has been stored five years in Sherry Casks, and is highly recommended for Medical and other purposes being mellowed with age, PERFECTLY PURE, and free from those heating qualities usually found in other whiskeys.”   Apparently this tipple was not meant for frigid Canadian nights.

Fennell’s familial relationship to Furlong may explain why the Canadian trusted to sent him in March 1879 to open a satellite store in Boston, 1,200 miles from St. John.  The Globe recorded his arrival with this notice:  “MR. THOMAS FURLONG,” the well known wine merchant of St. John, N. B., has opened a branch of his establishment at 161 Devonshire Street and 22 Arch Street, under the management of Mr. John Fennell, who has been with Mr. Furlong for twelve years, and in whom he reposes every confidence….Mr. Furlong has had experience of twenty-five years in the wine trade, and his selections can be relied upon as of the very best.”

Such a warm welcome from Boston’s currently oldest and largest newspaper loses some of its luster when it is understood that in its early years the Globe largely was controlled by Irish Catholic interests.  Moreover, Fennell reciprocated the favor two week later, and often thereafter, with Globe ads for Furlong’s Irish Malt and other alcoholic products.

A quick reading of those ads might leave the impression that the liquor house had two stores.  Fennell listed two addresses, 177 Devonshire and 38 Arch Steet, that actually described one building.  The liquor store encompassed two rooms, one at ground level where sales took place and a cellar used to store liquor and beer with elevator access.  A drawing shows a busy mercantile area with businesses ranging from insurance agents to a telegraph company.  Although the street address changed slightly over time Fennell remained at that location for 33 years.

Upon first arriving in Boston Fennell, still a bachelor, found lodging in an Irish-run boarding house on Oak Street.  Two years later he reached back to British Columbia to find a bride.  She was Mary E. Quinn, at 25 three years younger than John.  She had been born in Canada of Irish immigrant parents.  John and Mary would have only one child, a son, Frederic J., who died at three years old,  a source of heartache in the couple’s lives.

Fennell showed a particular talent for advertising his products in Boston area publications.  Here is an example:  “PURE WHISKIES – that are stored in sherry wine casks have a mellowness not found in other whiskies, and being honestly aged are free from those heating qualities usually found in so called old goods. Buying all whiskies from the distillery direct, I can sell fine goods from $8 a dozen up to the celebrated O.F.R., costing $30, and ordinary and special, in wood from $8 to $10 per gallon.”    Fennell also boasted of his brandies “selected from the leading houses of Cognac” and of personally selecting fine wines during his visits to the wine-producing districts of Europe. He also advertised an imported English ale.

Fennell sold his products in bottles blown in a three piece mold, both in amber and green glass.  Shown above are two examples of his quart glass containers, both bearing his name and “Boston.”  These bottles also carry “O.G.R.” on the base, a mark that normally denotes the glasshouse that made the bottle.  In this case it does not.  As shown here in an ad, the initials stand for O. Gordon Rankine, a Boston glassware dealer and jobber who was receiving his bottles from factories in Baltimore and Philadelphia.  Rankine apparently insisted on adding his own mark.

Although the original paper labels are missing from the great majority of Fennell’s bottles,  a label for his “Medford Rum” recently has come to light.  It is elaborately designed with accents of palm branches and flowers, a trade mark of a black bird rampant on a shield, and most interesting of all, two winged angels.  These cherubs are known by the Italian word, “putto” and more usually identified with beer. 

 

After 14 years of Furlong’s ownership, the Canadian turned over the liquor house to Fennell.  The change was noted in the October 17, 1886, issue of the Globe.  The new owner wrote:  “I have, therefore, the pleasure of announcing that I have opened at the old stand, and that in the future the business will be conducted as heretofore, but in my name solely…. I am in the position to give my customers, as in the past, the same pure and reliable goods at reasonable prices.”

He and Mary also moved into new lodging, renting a house at 33 Monandock Street, an unusual structure divided through the middle into two single-family attached homes and yards, shown here.   The 1900 federal census found the couple living there along with Mary’s sister, Kate Quinn.  That same year Mary died and was buried in St. Joseph Cemetery, West Roxbury.

The 1910 census found Fennell at a new home address.  Living with him and keeping house was his unmarried sister, Mary; a niece Helen, and a female servant. During this period Fennell was traveling frequently to Continental Europe, the British Isles, and Latin America.  A prime destination was Cuba with its rum factories.  One of the ships on which Fennell traveled, the S.S. Banan, a banana boat, is shown here loading cargo in Cuba.  

On a ship bound for England to see relatives in 1828 Fennell became seriously ill, seemed to recover after landing, suffered a relapse and died. He was 75 years old.  His body was returned to Massachusetts where he was buried next to Mary and Frederic.  Despite the Globe reporter’s apparent skepticism about Fennell’s account of his closing, no evidence ever came to light that the Irish whiskey man was fibbing about having sold all his liquor months before the National Prohibition axe fell.  

Note:  This post was occasioned by the recent find of the “Medford Rum” bottle by collector Peter Samuelson of New Hampshire.  It encouraged me to research information on Fennell.  Fortunately an internet blog entitled “Mike’s Glass Bottle Collection and History” (https://baybottles.com)  provided a wealth of material on Fennell, including Boston Globe articles and two Fennell ads. 

 

Foreword:  Is drinking from the hind end of a pig a particularly enjoyable way of swallowing whiskey?   A good number of pre-Prohibition distillers and liquor dealers must have thought so.  More than a few provided swigs from swine-figured bottles of glass and ceramic.  Featured here are three whiskey outfits that were particularly notable for their porkers.

The Amann Brothers of Cincinnati employed their pig flasks they for their “Berkshire Bitters,” the name of a famous breed of swine.  The Amann family originated in Europe, the exact place variously given as France or Germany.  Daniel was the firstborn in 1822, followed 13 years later by the birth of Anthony.  In 1839 their father uprooted the family to the United States, settling in Cincinnati.  There a third brother, Edmund, was born.  

Educated in local schools, the brothers appear early to have gone to work in the burgeoning local distilling and whiskey merchandising industry.   Advertising themselves as wholesale liquor dealers, the Amanns conducted a major rectifying — whiskey blending — operation.  One of their prime sellers was the highly alcoholic “Berkshire Bitters.”

 According to a relative, the recipe for that elixir came from the wife of a close friend of Edmund Amann. “Grandmother Harriet Conway McRoberts had a recipe for bitters that William [McRoberts] gave to the Amann brothers as he was on the decline.  They put that bitters recipe in little pig bottles.”   Today these porkers avidly are sought by collectors who care little about the swigs of bitters they once contained or granny’s recipe.

Like many rectifiers, Amann Bros. needed a consistently available supply of “raw” whiskey for their products in order to thrive.  This was a continuing problem, one exacerbated by the advent of various whiskey “trusts” that hiked prices on spirits available to rectifiers.  The brothers began to look for a distillery they could buy.

In 1890 they found one.  Initially known as the Almond Distillery it was located about 100 miles directly south of Cincinnati in Jessamine County, Kentucky.  They paid $10,000 for the property, a relative bargain likely related to the plant being located on low ground and subject to periodic flooding.  The photo indicates the extent of the facility.

Before the Amann’s bought the distillery it had the mashing capacity 200 bushels a day and capacity to store about 7,700 barrels for aging.  The brothers promptly increased the mashing capacity to 300 bushel per day and over time increased warehouse capacity to 13,500 barrels.  Most of this production was shipped to the Amanns for rectifying and bottling;  the rest was sold to other wholesalers and rectifiers.  From all indications, the Amanns, now assured of a steady supply of product,  were thriving during the 1880s.  By the beginning of the 20th Century, however,  two of the brothers had died and in 1903, Edmund sold the distillery and shut down the company.  The pigs remain as a reminder of the Amanns.

Festooned with patriotic red, white, and blue bunting from top to bottom,  the Star Saloon appeared in a photograph bedecked for the 1911 inauguration in Frankfort of the incoming Governor of Kentucky, James McCray.  Located at 222 St. Clair Street between Main and Broadway, the Star had long since become a favorite “watering hole” for the political and business elites of the state capital. Its amiable proprietor, Joseph Schroff, was a familiar local personality.

The success of a saloon was largely dependent on the personality of the owner.  A genial proprietor with a memory for faces and names, quick with a welcoming word, a keen sense of hospitality, perhaps something of a colorful personality, and above all, a generous spirit, could be assured of attracting a clientele.  On the last point, Schroff excelled.

His tradition of gifting customers across the bar with small ceramic bottles of whiskey was not unusual for the era.  Many publicans were accustomed to handing out mini-jugs and bottles that advertised their drinking establishments, each with several swallows of liquor inside.  Schroff went a step further by giving away bottles of unusual interest, containers shaped like pigs.

Schroff’s hogs were distinctive for their personality.  Note the pig bottle above, one that carries Schroff’s name, Star Saloon, and his address.  Upon further examination the porker exhibits its individuality by its flattened ears, distinctive nose and circular eyes.  Its backside, with curled tail and large drinking hole add to its distinctiveness.

That pig looks quite different from another Schroff giveaway pig, one with the leaner look of an Ozarks hog.  This ceramic bottle has well-defined ears, a long snout and wide nostrils, and most distinctive of all two splashes of cobalt for eyes. Rather than just a hole from which to quaff the contents, its tail forms a clear neck for drinking purposes.

Regrettably, Schroff’s time was limited at the Star Saloon.  He died in August 1896 in Frankfort, only 43 years old.  He left a widow with seven children to raise, the oldest sixteen, the youngest, one.

For more than a half-century one family operated a wholesale and retail liquor business in Cincinnati, Ohio, evidently prospering by close collaboration.  A 1905 book that provided caricatures of the city’s businessmen celebrated the Bielers’ success by depicting one of the second generation, likely Charles J., and two hands,  those of his brothers, as they guided the George Bieler Sons Company.  The family motto was “Pull Together.”

Blenders of whiskey not distillers,  the Bieler boys heavily  merchandised their flagship whiskey, Brookfield Rye, using the slogans, “Rare Old Perfect,”  and “Made famous by public favor.”  Although they packaged their whiskey in glass bottles, they favored ceramic jugs to make their product stand out amid the intense competition being provided by a plethora of Cincinnati liquor dealerships.  

Like their Cincinnati competitors,  the Bielers provided an array of giveaway items to saloons and other favored customers.  My favorite Bieler giveaways are their pig bottles.  Among them is honey brown ceramic pig that has a butt plug that identifies it as from George Bieler Sons and containing Ronny Club whiskey.   In 2013 this item fetched $778 at auction.  Another Bieler hog bears a splotchy brown coat and the brand name on a rear haunch.

The Bieler Boys continued to pull together and prosper through the 1900s. In 1901 they moved their operation to larger quarters at 717 Main Street only to move again to the northeast corner of Seventh and Main Streets in 1903.  There was a shift to the northwest corner of that same intersection several years later.  The next address in Cincinnati city directories was to 126 East Seventh St. in 1911.   Despite the firm’s success, Prohibition was fast closing in.  When Ohio went dry in 1916, the end of Geo. Bieler’s Sons Co. was in sight.  They moved to smaller quarters that same year, probably to maintain their mail order business, but terminated altogether in 1918.

The pig figural bottles displayed here today is over 100 years old and considered antique. They — and those like them — are avidly sought.  A least one collector has created what he calls his “pig pen” to display his fabulous group of ceramic and glass porkers.  Originating as giveaway items by the Amanns, Bielers and Schroff, each of the bottles shown here now fetches from hundreds of dollars to over $1,000.  

Note:  Each of the whiskey men cited here has been the subject of a previous post on this blog:   The Amanns, May 6, 2017;  Joseph Schroff, August 29, 2020, and The Bielers, May 27, 2013.

 

The caricature that opens this post is of a man pictured as one of the “prominent men of Montana”  whose career took him from laboring in the earth as a youthful miner to running a successful Butte liquor house and brewery and later heading up the fight against the forces of Prohibition in “The Bonanza State.”  His name was Jeremiah “Jerry” Mullins.

Mullins was born in Quebec, Canada, in August 1838 of Irish immigrant parents.  His father, Daniel Mullins from County Cork, immigrated to North America in 1846 at the outset of the Irish potato famine.  After a period in Massachusetts, Daniel went to Canada to work on the Canadian Grand Trunk Railway.  Jerry’s mother, Mary Mahoney, was born in Ireland and brought to Canada as a child.  The parents married there.  They would have nine children, of whom Jerry was the youngest. 

By the time Jerry Mullins reached school age the family had relocated to Marquette County, Michigan, where he attended elementary school.  His education ended when he was fourteen, forced by family circumstances to go to work.  “He subsequently earned his first money by driving a horse, receiving a dollar a day wages,”  according to a 1913 biography. “…His first permanent employment was as a day laborer on the Canadian Pacific Railroad.”

When he reached 21, Mullins, pulled by the lure of gold, left his Michigan home for the Black Hills of South Dakota.  The greatest days in Black Hills mining history had come three years earlier in 1876, when a team of four men discovered a gold bearing outcropping near present day Lead, S.D., staked a lode claim, and named their new mine the Homestake. They had located a part of the most significant gold vein in American history.  Thousands flocked to the area; many like Mullins too late to experience a golden harvest.   After laboring in the soil there for two years, in 1881 Mullins moved 520 miles west to Butte, Montana, and resumed his mining efforts.

Those activities may have been more fruitful.  After five years in mining he found sufficient resources to open a saloon on the east side of Butte’s Main Street, shown here.  This venture proved unsuccessful and after only a year Mullins abandoned the role of saloonkeeper and, as his biography put it:  “The ensuing four years was variously employed….”   Among occupations, he served two years as deputy sheriff of Silver Bow County.   Mullins’ talents were becoming increasing evident to himself and residents of Butte.

Thus it probably surprised no one when John A. Stromberg who ran a store on the corner of Arizona and Platinum Streets featuring “whole fruits, produce, wines, liquor and cigars” took Mullins on as a partner.  The new enterprise, Stromberg, Mullins Company ditched fruit and vegetables and became entirely a liquor house, also selling bar equipment and supplies, and boasting an adjacent saloon.  Shown here as it looks today, the company’s chief location was known as the Stromberg-Mullins Building.

Artifacts from Stromberg, Mullins are rare.  An exception is a bar token advertising Lemp beer, the product of the W. J. Lemp Brewing Company of St. Louis.  The token is believed by collectors to have originated in Butte where Stromberg, Mullins Co. represented was the brewery.

Meanwhile Jerry Mullins was having a personal life.  In August 1893, at the age of 35, he married Katherine O’Neil, a woman of Irish heritage, born in Michigan and according to records was 17 when they wed.  A year later their daughter, Mary Leona was born.  She was their only child.  By now prosperous, Mullins moved his family into a modest one story house at 510 West Galena Street in Butte.  Then he set about remodeling it extensively.  He added a one story extension and second story.  Today the house is on the historic register for its curved glass parlor bay, original Victorian interior, including a double staircase, an ornate support pillar, maple floors, and original light fixtures.  Mullins left his personal mark on the residence, carving his name in the granite doorstep and initials in the beveled glass above the door.  Shown here, although the exterior facade has been changed, the house interior is much as Jerry and Kate left it.

Mullins took a strong interest in local and state politics, active in the Democratic party organization in Butte.  He was elected from the Sixth Ward to a two year term on the City Council and followed with second term, named by his peers as Council President in City Hall, shown here. During this same period, he left Stromberg to open to his own saloon/liquor store and in 1904  joined with other Butte locals in starting a new brewery called the Tivoli Brewing Company.  Mullins was secretary treasurer and his saloon described as the main distribution point for wholesale and retail beer customers.

While Mullins may have been growing ever more wealthy from his liquor and brewery revenues, the forces of prohibition were accelerating in Montana as well as throughout the Nation.  Some brewers and beer distributors were employing a strategy that decried the evils of whiskey, allying themselves with the “Drys,” but insisting that beer was akin to “food” and should not be banned.  Alarmed, leading voices in the liquor industry, recognizing that the argument was damaging the entire effort at staving off bans on alcohol, created an organization called the National Protective Association.  It operated through a network of state units.  

As an individual who was involved with both liquor and beer, Jerry Mullins was a natural choice to be chosen president of the Montana Protective Association.  Traveling throughout the state advising on local issues, he became a widely recognized figure.  Thus it was no surprise when Mullins was selected among 100 Montana residents to be chosen for a caricature in the 1911 book, “Cartoons and Caricatures of Prominent Men of Montana,” — the picture that opens this post.  Mullins was the only “whiskey man” depicted.

In the end, Mullins efforts to beat back the forces of prohibition were futile.  On December 31, 1918, a year before the imposition of National Prohibition, Montana went “dry.”  Mullins was forced to close his saloon and witness the demise of the Tivoli Brewery after 14 years in operation.  Earlier he had taken a financial setback as the president of a mining company headquartered in Butte, capitalized at $1.5 million in 1914 dollars.  A mining journal reported the company owned the Ultamilla gold mine near Helena, Montana but was “in debt and idle.”

Whether it was these twin setbacks or other causes, Jerry and Kate moved to Seattle, Washington, the home of their now-married daughter.  There Mullins health declined because of heart problems.  In a weakened condition, he became a victim of a flu epidemic and died in January 15, 1923.  He was 64 years old.  On his death certificate his wife Kate gave his occupation as “hotel proprietor,” although I can find no record of his having been thus engaged.  After a funeral Mass in Seattle’s St. James Cathedral, he was buried in Calvary Catholic Cemetery, below. 

 

Over his lifetime Jerry Mullins, an immigrant’s son with limited schooling and a miner’s beginning, by dint of intelligence and effort in the alcoholic beverage trade had risen in business and political recognition to become one of Montana’s most prominent men.

Note:  This post was assembled from a variety of reference materials.  Principal was the book, A History of Montana, Volume 2,  published in 1913. Page 1167.“Cartoons and Caricatures of Prominent Men of Montana,”  was published in 1911 by J.C. Terry, artist and publisher.  

Unlike most of the “whiskey men” whose stories are told on this site, Goodwin was born into wealth and privilege.  His father, Manning Goodwin, was a gentleman farmer and merchant in New York.  Augustus, an only son, was given a good education and set on a vocational path as a businessman.  Early in his career, he became engaged to Frances Thorley, the daughter of Charles and Mary Thorley, a wealthy family living at a fashionable address on upper 72nd Street, Manhattan.

When Augustus and Frances wed the newspaper record of their nuptials described the extravagant nature of the occasion, reporting:  “The bride who was given away by her father, wore a white satin gown, with court train, and bodice and sleeves of Brussels point lace  Her diamond necklace was a gift of her father….Mrs. [Mary] Thorley was in white silk,embroidered and wore emerald and diamond ornaments.”  A mere 800 guests attended the reception following the wedding. 

 

A rising star in the East Coast business world, Goodwin was tapped to be the president of a speciality grocery chain in Boston called the Ginter Company.  A 1901 city directory listed three locations in the city, 236 Tremont, 2 Union and 163 Summer.  Under Goodwin’s guiding hand by 1905 the number of Ginter stores had risen to five in Boston and a sixth outlet in nearby Roxbury, Mass.  By 1915 the company would boast 14 stores in Boston proper and a similar number in the suburbs.

A key to Goodwin’s strategy for expansion and success was selling liquor under proprietary labels.  They included the following whiskeys:  “Actor Rye,” “Aquinas,”  “Banquet,”  ”Benton Rye,” “Glen Adir,” “Harlequin,” “Kangaroo Rye,” “Mentor,” “Promenade,” “Radcliffe Rye,” “Royal Wikstaf,” ”Sexton Rye,” “Sonata Rye,” and “Westford Rye.”  Unlike other liquor sellers, Goodwin trademarked a number of his most popular labels.  After Congress tightened the trademark laws in 1904, he registered Promenade Whiskey in 1905;  Harlequin, Mentor, and Royal Wikstaf in 1906, and Glen Adir in 1907.

Goodwin’s Ginter Company did not own a distillery but may have been dictating recipes to “captive” distilleries that contracted their entire output to the Boston chain.  Ginter likely was receiving the product by the barrel and devising the labels for the brands.  The bottling might have been done “in house” or contracted out.  So long as supplies of liquor were adequate to meet sales demands, the system was efficient and resulted in considerable profits.  Shown below are Ginter Co. ceramic jugs that also likely carried whiskey.

Coming from a Manhattan society background Frances Goodwin may have found Boston too provincial to her taste and chafed to return to “The Big Apple.”  After the birth of the Goodwins’ first and only child in 1909,  Augustus, perhaps as a way of mollifying his wife, agreed to a major remodeling of their mansion home at 130 Commonwealth Avenue, in one of Boston’s most elegant neighborhoods.  

The costly remodeling included rebuilding the front façade in a Beaux Arts design, eliminating a bay window to the east of the former entrance, and centering the entrance.  Significant interior remodeling adjusted floor levels and modified room arrangements.  Shown here are plans for the remodeling and the building as it looks today.  

Despite her husband’s exertions Frances was not satisfied.  She had developed a yen for royalty in the person of Count Adolphe J. von der Palen-Klar, living in Brooklyn, possibly under modest circumstances.  Adolphe’s family is said to have achieved nobility in 1799 when Emperor Paul the First of Russia, for reasons unknown, gave Peter Ludwig von der Pahlen and all of his descendants the rank of count.  Some members of the family also emigrated to Sweden where they formed part of  “unintroduced” nobility, i.e.. second class royals.  Adolphe inherited the family coat of arms, a somewhat chaotic design perhaps indicating a complicated ancestry.  How the Count got to Brooklyn and what he did there mattered little to Frances who had enough family money for them both.  

She divorced Augustus and subsequently married Adolphe on November 16, 1927 at the American Church in Paris, France.   After a honeymoon they returned to live in New York.  Frances quickly snatched onto the title of “countess,” however murky its origins.   Adolphe moved out of Brooklyn for lodgings with his new wife at one of upper Manhattan’s swankiest buildings, 920 Fifth Avenue.  Shown here, this limestone-clad building in the Italian palazzo-style, designed by the noted luxury apartment architect J.E.R Carpenter, was constructed in 1922.  It became the residence of movie star Gloria Swanson and other notables. Today a condo apartment there costs in excess of $13 million — no mortgages, thank you, just cash on the barrelhead. 

New York newspapers frequently ran items recounting the couple’s activities: “Count and Countess Adophe J. Von Der Palen-Klar gave a dinner last week at their home, 920 Fifth Avenue, in honor of the Grand Duke Boris of Russia, first cousin of the late Tsar, and the Grand Duchess.” “Count and Countess Adolphe J. Palen-Klar gave a dinner last evening at the Regis roof garden….”“[Four names]…were among the luncheon guests of Countess Adolphe J. von der Palen-Klar at the Ritz Carlton yesterday.”  Now clothed in royalty, Frances Thorley had arrived at the pinnacle of Gotham’s social set.

Meanwhile back in Boston, Augustus Goodwin was busy running the Ginter Company and indulging his hobby as an owner/breeder of thoroughbred racehorses, including the steeplechase jumper shown above.  He also found a second wife.  She was Julia E. Folsom, a Massachusetts-born woman six years younger than he.  Julie had had an earlier marriage and a child.  The 1930 federal census found the couple and the daughters of each living together in Hamilton, a rural suburb of Boston.   Shown here, Julia has the look of someone willing to abide a rich husband without a title.

Augustus Goodwin likely had retired from the Ginter Company by that time. In 1925 the business had merged with two other outfits to form a major new grocery chain known as First National Grocery, with stores spread throughout New England and into New York State.  Moreover, the advent of National Prohibition had ended all sales of alcohol and the whiskey brands that Goodwin had so carefully nurtured would be heard from no more.  

Goodwin’s love for horses was his undoing.  In July 1934, he dressed in his riding outfit and drove from his Hamilton home to the nearby stables where he kept his horses, mounted and rode off.  Somewhere along his journey the horse threw him to the ground.  Goodwin may have died almost instantly.  The cause was recorded as “fracture at base of skull.”  Age 61, Augustus was buried in the Hamilton Cemetery.  Julia died in 1951 and lies an adjacent grave.

In New York,  the countess died in 1944.  The count followed four years later.  Both are interred in the Von der Palen-Klar mausoleum at Woodlawn Cemetery in the Bronx.  Thus ended the saga of a Boston grocer and whiskey merchant and his errant wife who fancied a title more than tea bags and royalty over rye whiskey.

Note:  This post was gathered from a wide range of sources. Of major importance were genealogical sites.  Photos were gleaned from the Internet.  As often occurs, it was seeing Gintner Company whiskey bottles that sent me on a search for their origin and finding Augustus Goodwin and the Countess.

 

Brought to the United States from Germany in 1889 by their parents while they were still minors, Frank and Carl Ladner went on to create a wholesale and retail liquor enterprise that stretched from Montana to Illinois and produced a quantity of whiskey jugs that command significant prices from avid collectors.  The brothers are pictured here in maturity, Frank, the eldest, on the left.

After arriving in America the family initially settled in St. Paul, Minnesota, where the father, Franz Henry, found employment.  After six years, the Ladners moved in 1895 to nearby Red Wing, Minnesota, known for its quality potteries.  There Frank with the help of Carl founded the Ladner Brothers Saloon and Wholesale Liquor Company on the city’s Main Street.  The business apparently was a success.  With local potteries doing a booming business at the time, many of their workers had a taste for alcohol.

The Red Wing potteries also provided the Ladners with containers for their wholesale whiskey.  As shown here, the jugs ranged in size from one to five gallons, all bearing similar labels.  The Ladners were not distillers but were buying whiskey by the barrels, likely from distillers in Peoria and other Illinois locations, decanting them into smaller quantities and selling the product to saloons in Red Wing and the nearby Twin Cities, as well as pouring it over the bar in their adjoining saloon.  

Meanwhile, both men were having personal lives.  While still in St. Paul, at 19 Frank married.  His bride was Ellen “Nellie” Cain, a woman born in Minnesota of Irish immigrant parents who was slightly older than he.  During the next 10 years the couple would have six children.  Then sorrow struck as Nellie died in November 1905.  Left with children ranging in age from eleven years to a toddler, Frank remarried 18 months later.  His bride was Anna Koester of Red Wing.  They would go on to have four more children.  Carl, age 22, in September 1899 married Mary Straiger, of German descent in Red Wing.  They produced seven children.

For unexplained reasons, during the early 1900s the Ladners sold the liquor business to concentrate their energies on the success of their saloon.  Five years later Carl ceded his interest in the Ladner saloon to Frank and headed 300 miles west up the Mississippi River to Aberdeen, South Dakota.  There he opened a saloon and liquor store he called Aberdeen House.  Indicating that his leaving Red Wing had been an amicable separation, Carl named Frank as a partner. A photograph exists of this establishment.

Moreover, Carl continued to buy his liquor containers from Red Wing.  Selling at wholesale to Aberdeen saloons, he once again was buying “raw” whiskey from distilleries, delivered it to him in barrels by water and rail.  He was decanting it into jugs and selling it to the saloons, restaurants and hotels of Aberdeen.  As shown here the jugs ranged in size from a single gallon to two and five gallons. 

Like many liquor house proprietors, Carl was generous with his giveaways to his best customers.  Below are to examples of gifted shot glasses.  Note that like the sign on his saloon/liquor store, they advertise “Cream Pure Rye,” his house brand, likely blended on the premises. At the holidays he also gave away one-half pint decorative jugs of whiskey “Compliments of Ladner Brothers.”

Carl also was expanding the reach of the brothers’ liquor business, opening a branch office in Miles City, Montana, 360 miles west of Aberdeen, then still a “wild west” town.  Advertising as “Ladner Bros. Wine and Liquor Merchants,”  Carl installed an F. C. Schubring, a local of German heritage as his resident manager.  Schubring, according  to Miles City records, hired another Schubring, possibly his son, as a porter.  Carl also is recorded operating a satellite saloon in James, South Dakota, a rowdy railroad hamlet 12 miles from Aberdeen.

Amid this expansion, the specter of prohibition was looming larger and larger.  Local option laws bit by bit eliminated the ability of the Ladners to sell their liquor in surrounding communities.  South Dakota went completely “dry” in 1917, followed by Montana in 1918.  With foresight Carl had seen this strong movement in the upper Midwest to a ban on alcohol.  He closed up the Ladner Brothers operations in Aberdeen and Miles City and moved to Chicago.

For a time Carl managed a Coca Cola plant there but “whiskey was in his blood”  and with a friend from Red Wing days he established a new Ladner Brothers liquor house and cafe in The Windy City. Located at 207 West Madison Street, as shown above, it featured large signs, including one in neon, advertising the house brand, “Cohasset Punch.”  

The company’s flagship whiskey now became “Ladner’s Old Reserve.”  No longer was Carl mixing up whatever whiskey he could buy on the open market and selling it in generic jugs.  This new enterprise allowed the Ladners to arrange for a distillery to prepare whiskey from a Ladner recipe and bottle it with a proprietary label.  Below is a photo of the interior of the Chicago establishment, showing the bar and plenty of Old Reserve on the shelves.  That is Carl Ladner standing far right. This profitable enterprise came to an end in 1920 with National Prohibition.

Meanwhile in Red Wing, Frank Ladner also was coping with the emerging “dry” era.  With the coming of World War I and wartime restrictions on alcohol, he could see the demise of his liquor business.  Moving to groceries, Frank’s saloon became “Ladner’s Cash and Carry and Delivery Store” featuring fancy goods, ice cream, a soda fountain, and “soft drinks of all kinds.”  Nary a bottle of booze in sight.  

Back in Chicago Carl pivoted to the bottling trade, specializing in soft drinks and sparkling waters.  He died in 1947 at age 70 and was buried Calvary Cemetery of suburban Evanston, Illinois.  Frank lived to be 84, dying in 1956.  He was buried in Red Wing’s Calvary Cemetery.  Both men had seen the end of National Prohibition in 1934 but neither apparently was tempted once again to enter the whiskey trade that had sustained them and their families for so many years.  We are the beneficiaries of their signature Red Wing pottery jugs and the story of an enterprising immigrant family.

Notes:   This post has relied heavily for information on a 1995 publication entitled “The Red Wing Collectors Society Convention Supplement, Volume XI,” editor Chuck Drometer.  A number of the photos used are from a Ladner Family Flickr site on the Internet.   This material has been supplemented from other internet sources.