Author name: Jack Sullivan

In Kansas City during the late 1880s, liquor dealer John Morrin faced a dilemma.  Although his proprietary brands of whiskey sold well in Missouri and neighboring states, he was finding it difficult to get whiskey to blend as numerous dealers vied for supplies and the Whiskey Trust fought to dominate markets.  By looking 600 miles east, Morrin found a small distillery in a Kentucky village named for a buffalo wallow — bought it and prospered.

Morrin was born on a farm in Delaware County, Pennsylvania, to Patrick and Honora Graham Morrin, both natives of Ireland.  He received his elementary and secondary education in Pennsylvania, moving to Missouri when he was 18 as his family sought a larger farmstead.  Apparently with some training as a bookkeeper, he moved to Kansas City where in 1881 he appears in city directories keeping the books for W.C. Glass wholesale liquor dealers.

Morrin apparently showed a strong aptitude for the whiskey trade and in 1883 was advanced to traveling salesman for Glass.  By 1887 he was performing the same work for another local liquor firm, Martin, Perry & Company.  Before long Morrin decided to start his own liquor house in Kansas City.  About 1890, with associates E. T. Powers as vice president and George Beamish as secretary,  he opened Morrin, Powers & Company on Delaware Street in Kansas City, the major thoroughfare shown below.   Within four years he changed the firm’s name to Morrin, Powers Mercantile Company.  

From the outset Morrin demonstrated a flair for advertising his whiskey brands. They included “Fairmount Club,” “Grand Canyon,” “Palmetto,” and “Setter Pure Rye.”  He trademarked Grand Canyon in 1905 and Fairmont Club and Palmetto whiskies in 1906. Initially “King Bourbon” was his flagship brand, along with “Setter Pure Rye.”  Shown here is a serving tray made of porcelain that advertises both brands.  It was made in Carlsberg, Austria, by the Victorian pottery factory and was a fairly pricey item to be gifted to the saloons and restaurant carrying Morrin’s whiskey.

Both brands warranted his issuing saloon signs, shown above, featuring a lion  on a King Bourbon print and a Setter Rye wall hanging.  To his customers Morrin also gave away a picture of a nude model lying on a bearskin rug next to a pile of her discarded clothing.  Interestingly, this sign does not advertise any specific whiskey.

In apparent effort to move beyond selling his own proprietary brands, Morrin looked to one of Kentucky’s premier distillers, Col. E. J. Taylor Jr. of Frankfort, Kentucky [See post on Taylor. January 10, 2015].  Two of Taylor’s most popular brands were Carlisle and O.F.C whiskeys.   Morrin advertised both vigorously as: “The most perfectly distilled of any on the market and their purity recommends them as especially desirable for medical use.”  

In another ad shown above, Morrin made an effort to distinguish his liquor house from the many other dealers in Kansas City by a series of claims:  “We import more liquors than all other firms on the Missouri River.” “We own more Straight Whiskies than all other Liquor Firms in Kansas City.”  “We carry more insurance than all other wholesale liquor firms in Kansas City.”  Morrin also claimed a one year increase in business amounting to $100,000, several millions in todays dollar.

Morrin’s boasts did nothing to ameliorate the dilemma, he was facing.  Supplies for his house brands were becoming increasingly expensive and more and more difficult to secure. The Whiskey Trust was buying out distilleries and shutting many down in an effort to increase prices for liquor stocks.  Morrin looked for opportunities to buy his own distillery.  In 1890 he found it in a place in called Stamping Ground, Kentucky, population 331.

Both the location and the distillery bore histories.  The area had gained its name, Stamping Ground to memorialize the American bison (buffalo) that once roamed there.  Before being wiped out by hungry settlers, the animals were attracted to the site by salt licks, availability of spring water, “seeps” for wallowing, and a tasty clover species the locals called “buffalo clover.” 

Originally constructed as a woolen mill, the building had been converted to a distillery by Robert Samuels.  Not a full time distiller, Samuels is said to have made a barrel of whiskey only occasionally and eventually was forced to dispose of the property at a sheriff’s sale in 1873.  A series of owners followed.  

The first was Kinzea Stone, shown here,  an entrepreneur with property holdings in nearby Georgetown,  Kentucky, and four other states.  Although Stone indicated an interest in producing and selling a whiskey commercially, other distractions intervened.  In 1882 he sold the distillery to the Crigler family of Cincinnati [See post on Crigler, January 10, 2012].  They began producing 15 gallons of whiskey a day under the name “Buffalo Springs.”  The company name became Mullins, Crigler & Company.  In time the Criglers departed and the name was changed once again to A. B. Mullins Company.

This was the distillery that John Morrin, in far off Kansas City, saw as an opportunity to break out of the dilemma of finding sufficient liquor to blend, bottle and merchandise.  In about 1890 he bought the plant, continuing to produce whiskey using the recipes from the Criglers.  Applying his talents as a salesman, according to whiskey historian Sam Cecil, Morrin’s distillery “soon made a wide reputation, particularly in the West.”  

Morrin’s two main brands were “Buffalo Springs,” a sour mash bourbon, and “Stamping Ground,” a rye whiskey  Other labels were “Buffalo Bourbon” and Scott County.”  By the mid-1890s, the Kansas City proprietor had increased distillery mashing capacity to 100 bushels a day and had four warehouses with capacity for aging 2,500 barrels.  Morrin issued a whetstone as a customer giveaway that emphasized the buffalo ties.

After almost a decade operating the Stamping Ground distillery, Morrin sold it to a Paris, Kentucky, partnership of Haynes & Trumble, whose company had been major customers for his whiskey  The reason for the sale may well have been the distance of the distillery from Kansas City.  A decade of constant travel between sites and the need for employee supervision from afar may have been wearing on Morrin and his family life.  

Like many young Irishmen, Morrin had married relatively late.  At 32 he wed Caroline, a woman just slightly younger, who apparently had been married earlier and brought two daughters, Juanita and Eulalia, to their union.  Morrin provided them with a large home in a fashionable neighborhood of Kansas City, shown here.  The household included one live-in maid.  

Despite the success of his Kansas City liquor house, Morrin could see his sales being curtailed by Prohibitionist pressures.  Missouri was safely “wet,” but one after another Western states were going “bone dry.”  Several years after selling the Buffalo Springs distillery, Morrin closed down his liquor business and retired to invest in other local enterprises.  Those included the Traders’ Bank of Kansas City and the city’s Racing and Fair Association.

Morrin lived long enough to see National Prohibition repealed, dying in 1934 at the age of 75.  He was buried in the Mount Calvary Catholic Cemetery in nearby Holden, Missouri.  His memorial and gravestone are shown below.

 

After Repeal new ownership bought the the distillery and after a fire rebuilt it.  Shown below, as refurbished, the Stamping Grounds facility once again was turning out good whiskey.  In 1941 the property was purchased by Schenley who operated the plant for almost 20 years but shut it down in 1960.  Today all that remains of the distillery John Morrin put on the “whiskey map” is the old stone headquarters building. 

Note:  This post was created from a variety of sources.  Two primary references were “Bourbon in Kentucky, A History of Distilleries in Kentucky,” by Chester Zoeller, Butler Books, Louisville 2010, and “The Evolution of the Bourbon Whiskey Industry in Kentucky,” by Sam K. Cecil, Turner Publishing, Paducah KY, 2000.  Unfortunately I have been unable to find a picture of John Morrin to enchance this story but hope some alert reader may be able eventually to supply one.

While reporting on a lawsuit involving the estate of Edward Kane, a well known New York liquor dealer, the Brooklyn Daily Eagle of February 19, 1909,  made this observation:  “Fiction has produced few stranger stories….”  While that may have been an exaggeration, the newspaper revealed a situation so bizarre that it might well have come from a novel.

Edward was not born “Kane,” generally considered of British or Irish origin. His birth surname was “Kohn” and he had been born in Germany about 1826.  He told the 1880 census taker his birthplace was “prison.”  Kane’s childhood days are lost in the mists of history but much of his extraordinary life upon arriving in the United States can be documented, including a surrounding cast of characters, several bearing the name Kane.

By the time Edward Kane arrived on these shores in 1865, he was 39 years old and  married.  His wife was Julia Bertha Kane.  Their only recorded child, a boy, was born in the U.S. in 1854.  He was Henry E. Kane, a son who figures in this story.  Granted citizenship in August, 1873, the Kanes settled in Brooklyn.  For unknown reasons, possibly related to her husband’s conduct, Julia left him in the mid-1870s and returned to Germany. She did not return to America until after Kane’s death.  There was no indication of a formal divorce.

Meanwhile Edward Kane was making his mark as a “whiskey man.”  From his main headquarters at 24 Union Street in Brooklyn, he rapidly expanded his outlets.  “From one liquor store to another and another, and finally he had a chain of them in Brooklyn and Manhattan.”   Kane advertised extensively by issuing trade cards featuring youngsters, often with their pets, with an advertisement on the reverse as a “Importer, Rectifier [blender], Wine and Liquor Merchant,”  Early cards, shown below listed two stores in Brooklyn, and one each in New York City, Jersey City, and Tompkinsville, Staten Island, a total of five.

Several years later the number of Kane’s liquor outlets had grown significantly as detailed on the reverse of the trade cards below,  Now there were eight liquor stores, four in Brooklyn, and one each in Manhattan, Jersey City and Staten Island, and a distant location in Stoney Brook, Long Island.  As before, Kane chose to advertise his stores through depictions of winsome youngsters on trade cards.

The Stoney Brook Grist Mill, founded about 1751 some 60 miles from Brooklyn, marked a new departure for Kane, although once again he chose child images on trade cards to advertise.  The rear of the two cards below describes the entrepreneur’s plan for the property designed to provide flour — “purer, sweeter, and more healthful than patent process can ever be” — and “delivery of all kinds of Grain and Feed in the market.”

In this way, Kane introduced his purchase of Stoney Brook Grist Mill, shown below as it looks today as a heritage site, adding:  “Having recently purchased the Stoney Brook Mill property and added new and improved machinery to do first class work and meet the requirements of the public, and being aware that success depends on the quality of the project as well as honest and just treatment, I extend a special invitation to the public to give me a trial, feeling assured of giving full satisfaction in price, quality, and business management.”  The opening of this mill may have been the high water mark of Edward Kane’s entrepreneurship.

As he entered middle-age, Kane’s attention increasingly seemed to focus on his personal life.  He had become enamored with a young woman named Annie Rose Gilzinger, born 1863 in Kingston, New York, the daughter of Margaret and Lewis Gilzinger. a wagon maker.  Annie Rose was about 37 years younger than her lover but they became a devoted couple, living together, despite Kane’s seeming lack of a divorce from Julia Bertha.  They had at least one child together, a girl, whom they named “Mamie.”  Legally adopted by Edward, she took his name and would play a part in the long roll-out of the family scandal.

With many stores to manage and now the distraction of his unusual family life, Kane recognized that he needed help.  Enter Henry D. Schwab, shown here, who first went to work as a bookkeeper at L. Kane & Company.  Proving to be a highly able employee, Schwab eventially was raised by Kane to a full partnership in the liquor empire he had created, sharing the complicated management burden.

Moreover, with advancing age Kane’s health began to falter.  While Annie Rose continued to care for him in his infirmities, their conjugal relationship ended after several years, as reported in her obituary, an article that openly recounted the liaison with the liquor dealer.  That account also reveals that while still caring for Kane, Annie Rose married another man.  His name was Simon Strauss, listed in Annie Rose’s obituary as the father of her next four children, namely Samuel, Carol, Edward, and Frances.  The official birth record for Samuel, however, lists Edward Kane as his father.  

When, after a long decline, Kane died on December 11, 1897, newspaper reports suggested suicide.  The Brooklyn Eagle said:  “…There was a possibility he died of carbolic acid poisoning. Self-administered.”  The prospect that Kane took his own life also was suggested when he registered his will just a week before his death.

Kane left his estate solely to his daughter Mamie and named her mother, now Annie Strauss, as the administrator.  In Annie’s petition filed with the court, Kane’s wealth, mostly real estate, was valued at $60,000, equivalent to more than $2 million today.  Indicating a severe decline of Kane’s fortunes near the end of his life, most of that value was “encumbered by mortgage, taxes, and other liens, which amount, in the aggregate, [is] about the value of the…real property.”  The net value of the liquor baron’s bequest to Annie and family was about $10,000.

Edward’s son,  Henry E. Kane, on behalf of himself and his mother,  Bertha,  still married to Kane, initally made an effort to contest the will.  The effort drew Bertha back to the United States after decades in Germany.  For several  years Henry had played an important but subordinate role in the operation of the Kane liquor empire, apparently responsible for managing several liquor stores.  The whiskey jug shown here bears his name.  Henry at some point seemingly disappointed his father who turned to Henry Schwab as his partner.  Together they bought out Henry’s interests.  Although Kane’s son and wife initially challenged his will, the many encumbrances to be dealt with and relatively small remaining bequest may have discouraged their efforts and the pair ultimately withdrew their suit.

Henry Schwab came to the fore.  With Annie as the administratrix of the estate, Schwab quickly was able to reach a settlement and bought the deceased Kane’s share of the business.  The former bookkeeper pointed to his personally having paid off $50,000 in company debts earlier as Kane’s health had faltered.  After his death Schwab assumed all liabilities, freeing up the estate from financial claims and greatly increased the financial benefit to Mamie and Annie. When Simon Strauss died a year after Kane, Annie married again and bore her second husband three more children.

None of the details of Edward Kane’s conjugal adventures might have come to light had it not been for Mamie.  After almost a decade had passed, now as Mrs. Mamie M. Ague, she cast an envious eye on Henry Schwab who had pulled the Kane company out of debt and apparently was prospering.  She claimed that her father’s former business partner, had experienced an altogether too rapid rise in wealth after her father’s death and challenged the earlier settlement of Kane’s estate.  Mamie demanded an new accounting, her expectation apparently further payout from Schwab.  Her petition provided steamy details of her father’s love life previously unknown by the public, including his bigamous relationship with her mother, Annie. The story raised eyebrows all over New York that a well known wealthy businessman had put a former mistress in charge of his estate.  The Brooklyn Daily Eagle speculated:  “Many of the facts alleged by the plaintiff are found in the papers and indicate that the trial will be a mighty interesting one.” 

As it turned out, despite the scandalous details, the trial turned out to be a rather

humdrum affair.  Schwab argued that Mamie’s suit was an unwarranted attack on his reputation.  With his own funds he had freed the bequest from outside claims, thus making more of Kane’s money available to Mamie, her siblings, and her mother.  Instead of gratitude, he now faced legal action. Clearly unimpressed with the case presented by Mamie’s lawyers, the judge ruled in favor of the liquor dealer.  Mrs. Ague got nothing and paid court costs.

Schwab subsequently made his own reputation in Brooklyn business circles. To the company list of offerings, he added and copyrighted his own brand of bitters, called “Dr. K’s Stomach Bitters.”  With the growing threat of National Prohibition, however, the bookkeeper cum proprietor eventually shut the doors on E. Kane & Company after more than a half century of operation.

Today visitors to Stony Brook, New York, can arrange for a tour of the restored Kane Grist Mill given by the local heritage organization.  The tour also includes the viewing of Long Island’s very first vineyard and a docent’s recitation of “the scandalous story of Edward Kane.” But, of course, that is a story you already know.

Note:  This post has been crafted from a range of sources.  Important among them were news stories from the Brooklyn Daily Eagle of April 7, 1908 and February 18, 1909, and  the obituary of Annie Rose Gilzinger reprinted on ancestry.com.  I have been unable to find a photo of Kane or identify his burial site.  Am hopeful that an alert reader will help fill in those details.

In the days before National Prohibition when women, at least respectable women, were barred from saloons, proprietors felt free to distribute cards advertising their establishments that often included “double entrendre” messages, often provided in verse.  Shown here are six such offerings from watering holes across America and reaching into Mexico.

The first example comes from Becker’s Saloon in Reno, Nevada, a place where one might get a limburger cheese sandwich and a beer for 15 cents.  It was located in the Becker Building on Commercial Row in Reno and held the saloon, a restaurant and a card playing center.  Its trade card depicted a comely woman with a monkey shaking hands with a farm boy and reads:

The boys all like Mary, and

Like her monkey too,

And when they play so 

Nice with it, what can Mary do?

This saloon card was one of a series of six about Mary and her “monkey.” The next card shows Mary swimming with the animal and the verse is:

Mary went in swimming and 

She took her little pet

A wave hit her in the “good 

Old supper time…” and she

Got her monkey wet.

The 1911 city directory of Springfield, Illinois, lists almost three full pages of saloons, indicating that the competition for customers among them must have been fierce.  That may explain the number of trade cards from that city that carried suggestive poetry.   Zimmerman & Co. called its place The “Budweiser,” a designation that suggests a “tied” saloon, that is, one that served only a single kind of beer in return for financial support from a brewer.  Its “poem” read:

With fond regret I now remember,

Those happy days of youthful fun,

When all my limbs were lithe and limber, 

Did I say all?  Yes all but one.

Those glorious days have ceased forever,

The happy days of youthful fun,

All limbs are daily growing stiffer

Did I say all?  Yes all but one.

Another saloon was the Sullivan Bar on Springfield’s North Sixth Street.  But Sullivan was not there.  Instead the proprietor was another Irishman named William Greenhalgh.  Noting that Sullivan’s “thirst parlor” also had “rooms in connection” a question arises about what additional activities might have been going on there.  The verse on the card back side may give a clue:

Tis said that in these days of progress and push,

That ONE bird in the hand is worth TWO in the bush;

But the summer girl says, if birdie will stand,

ONE bird in her bush is worth TWO in her hand.

William J. Cordier, the cravated chap shown here was proprietor of the Schlitz Forum & Cafe, another “tied” saloon, just down the street from Sullivan’s in Springfield.  Cordier felt the poetic urge to issue two risqué’ cards.  One of them contains eight suggestive quatrains, of which the following are two:

Here’s to the girl that dresses in the sailor hat,

Pink shirtwaist and white cravat,

Patent leather shoes and blue parasol,

And a little brown spot that pays for them all.

Here’s to the girl that dresses in black,

She alway looks neat and never looks slack,

But when she kisses, she kisses so sweet,

She makes things stand that have no feet.

Cordier also issued a second card that featured a story in verse about a fly that intrudes into a grocery store and, after defecating on a piece of ham, proceeds to elude the storekeeper and then:

When he had done his deadly work

He flew right over to the lady clerk

And up her leg he took a stroll

And took bath in her hole.

Proprieties deteriorate further in subsequent stanzas until the fly meets an untimely — and unseemly — death. 

Tommy Sookiasian, an Armenian, was proprietor of a saloon in Juarez, Mexico, a short distance over the Rio Grande River from El Paso, Texas.  He issued a trade card that, while ostensibly involving cattle and their tails is meant to remind us of the deterioration in the male organ of generation as the years take their toll.  Tommy ran a bar and cafe featuring a mostly fish menu and was a wholesale liquor dealer.

Contemplating the unusual name of “The Humorist Saloon,” perhaps it was the proprietor,  T. E. Tobin,  depicted on the trade card, who fancied himself a funny man.  His St. Louis watering hole seems never to have closed, being open ”day and night.”  His rhyme on the reverse while not having sexual overtones, was laced with profanity, as exemplified in the stanza that follows:

Beer is a beverage,

That works upon the mind;

It makes men and women talk,

When they are not inclined.

It works like a figure,

And works without a rule,

And make people think they are smart

When they are a G—D—d Fool.

This is just a small sample of the artistic achievements contributed to the American poetic lexicon by the Nation’s saloonkeepers.   Their works seldom receive attention, particularly in literary (as opposed to drinking) circles.  I am happy to remedy that omission here.

Labels:  Risque’ saloon cards

Posted by Jack Sullivan at 12:46 PM

Labels: Becker’ Saloon Reno, Humorist Saloon St. Louis, risque’ saloon cards, Saloon poetry, Springfield Illinois saloons

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Edward H. Brinkman (Brinkmann), who apparently jettisoned the Germanic “n” at the end of his name during World War One, spent most of his working life employed by the Union Distilling Company, rising from bookkeeper’s assistant to president of the Cincinnati distillery and liquor house. Demonstrating unique staying power, Brinkman’s imprimatur continued to appear on whiskey even during the years of National Prohibition.

Born in August 1871 in Cincinnati, Brinkman was the son of German immigrants.  His father Christian Frederick Brinkmann had emigrated to the United States in 1855 from Germany at age 19 and settled in Cincinnati, a very Germanic city where he worked as a tailor.  Ten years later he met and married another German immigrant, Anna Warneke.   Edward was born six years later.  Educated in Cincinnati schools, known for their quality throughout Ohio, the boy apparently demonstrated a flair for mathematics.

Before reaching 21 Brinkman was hired as assistant bookkeeper at the Union Distilling Company, a Cincinnati liquor house that had been founded about 1884,

headed by president George Gerke, another German immigrant. Beginning at the lowest rung in the company hierarchy, young Brinkman apparently proved to be an able bookkeeper, working closely with George Dieterle. the compay secretary and treasurer, and gaining his confidence.  

In 1895, Brinkman became a member of the Dieterle family, marrying Augusta Dieterle, George’s sister.  Both 24 years old, the couple would go on to have one child, Anna Hilda.  The marriage signaled Brinkman’s steady move up the promotion ladder.  In a 1894 directory he was listed as a “clerk” at Union Distillery.  By the early 1900s, Brinkman had been raised to vice president. In 1914 the Cincinnati Chamber of Commerce reported a shake-up in the distillery hierarchy.  Edward Brinkman, former bookkeeper, now was recorded as president of Union Distilling.  

The company clearly had found a foothold in the booming and crowded Cincinnati liquor trade, adopting the slogan, “None Better.”  Company brands approached thirty.  They included:  “Anchor,” “Azax,” “Biltmore,” “Bob Pepper,”  “Bucktail,” “Bull Run,” “Camelia,” “Dave Crockett,” “Davy Crockett,” “Dexter,” “Diamond Mills Rye,” “King Rex,” “Lenox,” “Lone Star,” “Mayflower,” “Middle Brook,” “Old Club House,” “Old Eagle,” “Old Glory,” “Old Gold Metal,” “Old Silver Medal,” “Old Yacht Club,” “Smoky Hollow,” “Southern Bouquet,” “Tippecanoe,” “Union,” “Universal,” and “Zeno.”

Under Brinkman’s leadership Union Distilling trademarked 15 of those brands.  Beginning slowly in 1905, following Congressional strengthening of trademark laws, he registered Tippecanoe and Zeno.   Despite the cost of hiring lawyers and artists to prepare government applications, the company followed in 1906 to add ten more brand names to the registered list.  Following years saw Biltmore trademarked in 1907, Anchor in 1908 and Azax in 1909.

On its letterhead, Union Distilling featured three brands, Old Glory, its flagship label, along with Lenox and Tippecanoe.  As shown below, Old Glory, while carrying the Union Distilling imprint was given two labels that different in details.  At left is one in which the Stars and Stripes are evident and it is twilight.  At right the flag is not evident and a sun has been added. 

During this period of Brinkman’s ascendancy, Union Distilling was growing steadily.  In an open letter to customers dated November 1, 1910, the company announced that it had purchased “…The entire stock of  bonded whiskies and other liquors, the brands, copyrights and trade name of the Diamond Distilleries Company, of this city.”  The letterhead listed six brands, Old Glory, Lenox, and Tippecanoe, adding the Diamond labels, King Rex, Middlebrook and Diamond Mills Rye.  The letter also references Union Distilling “rebuilding” a distillery — and presumably warehouses —and promising that the company soon would begin full operations.

My assumption is that Brinkman and his colleagues had purchased an interest in and refurbished a plant that after several prior identities became known as the Latonia Distillery, built shortly after the end of the Civil War. It was located four miles south of Cincinnati, at the juncture of the Louisville Short Line & Kentucky Central Railroads near Latonia Station.  Insurance underwriter records of 1892 indicate that the distillery was brick with a metal or slate roof. The property included a cattle shed, a “whopping” 23 bonded warehouses and one free warehouse, all of constructed of brick with metal or slate roofs. The warehouses were listed according to the various aliases used by liquor houses owning their alcoholic contents.  Union Distilling claimed two warehouses, designated “I” and “W.”  Those structures apparently allowed the company to declare the entire distillery as its own, as shown below.

In 1903 the Cincinnati papers announced that Edgemont Springs Distilling Co. was being absorbed into Brinkman’s Union Distillling. Its founder Christopher Sandheger had sold out [See my post on Sandheger, Nov 6, 2013.]  According to the press notice, the value of Union Distilling had been increased from $300,000 to $750,000.  As a result of the acquisition, it was reported, Union Distilling had moved more firmly into production of whiskey as well as marketing it.  It was issuing back-of-the-bar bottles to saloon customers.

At that point Brinkman and Union Distilling renamed its slice of the Latonia facility as “The Edgemont Springs Distillery Company.”  Government documents record that “Edw. H. Brinkman” representing Edgemont, added and subtracted whiskey from Latonia warehouses twice in 1901, again in 1903 and 1904.  By the next decade Brinkman had reverted to using Union Distilling as the entity involved in the transactions.  His last activity was recorded in 1920 as National Prohibition was taking hold.

The 14 years of “dry” were not to be the end of Ed Brinkman as a Cincinnati “Bourbon Baron.”  Despite National Prohibition, for a time he was allowed to hold and sell liquor that had been distilled earlier.  His role was providing liquor to the few privileged dealers licensed by the government to market “medicinal” whiskey.  Shown below is a 1931 bottle of “Schenley’s Aged Medicinal Whiskey” at 100 proof, “bottled in bond” and touted as “recommended by physicians and surgeons.”  The label on the back credits Brinkman for the whiskey produced in 1917 and bottled in 1931 by Schenley.

Brinkman had  other suitors for his whiskey stocks. Shown below is a pint bottle of “Silver Grove” straight bourbon from the Geo. T. Stagg Co. of Frankfort, Kentucky. [See my post on Stagg, April 30, 2016].  The rear label credits Brinkman as the distiller and identifies the distillery as Ohio #2 (apparently Latonia).  When those liquor supplies were exhausted Brinkman turned his attention to producing industrial alcohol.

In 1938 at the age of 67, Edward Brinkman died and was buried in Cincinnati’s Spring Grove Cemetery.  As he aged the Cincinnati native could look back on a lomg career and note his humble beginning as an assistant bookkeeper and his step-by-step ascendancy to the top of a prominent and respected liquor company.  Ironically, his rapid rise had coincided with the fall of the industry.

 

Note:  This post has been written from a comparatively meager number of sources.   It also lacks a photo or description of this “whiskey man.”  I am hopeful that a descendant will help fill in the gaps about Edward Brinkman and Union Distilling, and correct any errors in the narrative.

    

S.T. Suit

Whiskey baron Samuel Taylor (S. T.) Suit whose distillery and mansion sat in what is now Suitland, Maryland, adjacent to the District of Columbia, was an early example of a “Washington insider,” wining and dining Presidents, members of Congress, and high Executive Branch officials. Although a past post (see August 4, 2011) described Suit’s life and loves in detail, one event in which he played a pivotal role was omitted. Suit was responsible for the venue of negotiations that helped settle a prolonged legal battle between the United States and England in the wake of the Civil War. 

Throughout his career Suit was a man with a keen eye for political clout and ingratiated himself with the power brokers of his time. Colorful trade cards for his whiskey focussed on of Washington, D.C. One shown here speaks of “fine Kentucky whiskey,” but shows the U.S. Capitol, including the back of a toga clad George Washington statue that once stood there.  Suit used a second view of the Capital as his letterhead and on ads.

Suit matched them with two colorful trade cards of the U.S. Congress in session, Senate and House of Representatives, looking much as they did in his time. It may be assumed that Suit himself frequently was in the gallery or to be found chatting in the members’ lobbies. 

 

The Maryland distiller did not come empty handed to the Congress and Suit’s whiskey containers were said to be a frequent sight in the U.S. Capitol. His gifting made him a welcome figure in those hallowed halls. He also made sure his whiskey was sold in the finest Washington D.C. hotels where many senators and congressmen spent  their leisure hours.

Suit’s push for influence in the Nation’s Capital paid off in several ways. One trade card provided testimonials for the strength and purity of his whiskey from two District of Columbia officials, the president of the DC Board of Health and an Health Department medical officer. The latter asserted: “Physicians will appreciate how important it is to their success in the treatment of diseases, as well as to the patient, that the stimulants they prescribe should be of a standard and unvarying quality, which desideratum Col. Suit’s liquors appear to fill.” 

The canny distiller also used his influence to convince federal officials to built a road from Washington to his estate, known today as Suitland Parkway, and he lobbied successfully for a U.S. post office to be authorized for Suitland when it was largely a rural community and had few residents.  Suit’s lavish entertainment of top government officials, including Presidents Ulysses S. Grant and Rutherford B. Hayes, frequently was noted in Washington newspapers. Likely it was this hospitality that caused Suit’s mansion to be chosen for the conduct of the most sensitive negotiations with England since the War of 1812. 

The dispute concerned warships built in Britain and sold to the Confederacy during the Civil War. Although the British Foreign Enlistment Act of 1819 had forbidden the construction of foreign warships, the South was still able to evade the letter of the law and purchase a number of cruisers from Britain. Confederate warships destroyed or captured more than 250 American merchant ships and caused their owners to covert 700 more vessels to foreign flags. By the end of the war, the U.S. Merchant Marine had lost half its ships.

The most famous of those marauding vessels was the CSS Alabama, shown above left being sunk in battle by the USS Kearsarge  Before its end, however, the Alabama had done significant damage to the American merchant fleet.  Less famous was the CSS Florida, right, that attacked Yankee ships in the South Atlantic until it was captured and disabled off the coast of Brazil. Both vessels figured importantly in the legal wrangling.

Powerful forces in Washington howled for retribution in what became known as “The Alabama Claims.” Senator Charles Sumner, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, wanted $2 billion in damages ($50 billion in today’s dollar), or alternatively, the ceding of all Canada to the United States. Secretary of State Seward was more generous. He suggested the U.S. being given only British Columbia. Other important Yankees coveted Nova Scotia as compensation.  Those became known as “indirect claims.”  Translation:  Not money, just lots of territory.

Public and Congressional fervor over annexing parts of Canada caused the British to stall negotiations for many months after the end of hostilities. Finally in 1870 President Ulysses S. Grant sought to end the dispute through diplomatic talks. To save face, the Washington powers insisted that an initial agreement had to be negotiated on U.S. soil. But where? Grant apparently remembered Suit’s ample food and drink, including his excellent whiskey, and decided that the Suitland estate in nearby Maryland was just the place for American and British diplomats to hammer out the details, as depicted below. 

Suit himself apparently was delighted with the choice of his home and played genial host throughout the deliberations.  He also insured that his whiskey was readily available to help “lubricate” the discussions. The resulting agreement became known as the Treaty of Washington. A sticking point, however, continued to be the lust for all or part of Canada by important American political figures.  When the deliberations also failed to settle the amount of recompense for damage to American ships, the two sides agreed to referring monetary compensation to an international third party tribunal, thus breaking new ground in international dispute resolution.

Negotiating the Treaty of Washington

The British, however, strongly refused to recognize the validity of territorial demands. The dispute remained unsettled until 1871,when the “Alabama claims” at last was referred to an arbitration tribunal convened in Geneva, Switzerland.  The international arbitrators threw out the so-called “indirect” claims and awarded the United States $15.5 million for verifiable losses to shipping caused by the Confederate warships. The British, knowing a good deal when they saw it, quickly agreed to pay up.  Adjusted for inflation, the settlement would be the equivalent of $400 million today.

The highly popular American magazine, Harper’s Weekly, ran a front page cartoon of the Geneva proceedings, indicating disappointment that the award had not been larger.  Uncle Sam is shown addressing the tribunal of judges, pictured as a group of overweight and seemingly distracted Europeans.  The symbol of America clearly is disappointed with the outcome, warning the judges that the precedent set by their decision might be used to American advantage in the future:  “Sour grapes” are barely disguised.

The Geneva Tribunal

S.T. Suit, the Washington insider, had etched his name in the history books. Sadly his mansion burned to the ground several years later and was never rebuilt. The Treaty of Washington, it should be noted, has been cited by legal scholars during ensuing years as establishing the principle of third party arbitration, fostering international law and a precursor to the Hague Convention, the World Court and even the United Nations.

 

By the time Nathan Block entered the Louisville liquor trade in the late 1870s, the Kentucky city was fast becoming the whiskey capital of America.  Competition was intense.  Finding a marketing niche was challenging.  While others were championing low cost booze, Block chose to aim high.  Thus he is remembered and honored as a broker, wholesaler and ultimately distiller who promoted and sold the finest in Kentucky bottled-in-bond whiskeys.  At the same time, however, Block’s life was plagued by setbacks and family tragedies.

Block was born in Bavaria in August 1844, a state in the Germany where Jews regularly had faced discrimination.  Two years before his birth all Jews had been expelled from the province of Upper Bavaria.  This persecution may have led his father, Moses, to emigrate with the Block family to the United State when Nathan was ten years old, settling in Louisville. The father built a productive life in America for his children, insuring that they were given good educations. It was said that:  “With an unrelenting work ethic, his father, Moses, instilled in [Nathan] the belief that anything was possible if you were willing to work hard enough for it.”

 Upon achieving maturity Nathan initially worked in the wholesale dry goods business.  He soon tired of that occupation and abandoned lingerie for liquor.  In 1875 with his younger brother, Joseph, and a friend, Emile Franck, they established a whiskey brokerage firm, buying from quality Kentucky distillers and selling to liquor dealers in some 29 states coast to coast under the name Block, Franck & Company.

An 1888 publication, “The Industries of Louisville and of New Albany, Ind.” referred to the partners as: “Composed of active, energetic young men, and every member travels from one year end to the other….”  As brokers, Block and his partners specialized in selling top shelf bourbon, reputed to be able to supply the best whiskey available in Kentucky:  “This house deals only in goods in bond, and all shipments are made directly from bonded warehouse, thus assuring to the trade that the whiskies are perfectly straight, the most desirable feature for retailers buying their goods.”  For a time the brokerage operated from an office in the Columbia Building, Louisville second tallest structure, shown here.

Frustrations over obtaining sufficient quality product may have moved Block, Franck to expand into a full-fledged wholesale liquor operation located at 205 West Main Street on Louisville’s famed “Whiskey Row.” There the partners also featured proprietary brands of whiskey, likely blended in their own quarters.  Their whiskeys included “Kentucky Oaks,” “Kentucky Derby,” ”Tremont,” and “Gold Dust.”  Their flagship brand appears to have been “Old Thoroughbred Rye,” shown below in a flask and back-of-the-bar bottle.  Although it is claimed that the partners registered their brand names under the trademark laws, I can find no evidence.

The Bernheim Brothers

As with many liquor wholesalers, the problem of securing sufficient quality whiskey was a continuing problem for Block as the demand for his bourbon grew.  Seeking to buy at least a share of his own distillery, he found an opportunity when the Pleasure Ridge Park Distillery came on the market.  That distillery had been built by F. G. Paine on the  Dixie Highway adjacent to the Newport News & Mississippi Valley Railroad about eleven miles from downtown Louisville.  To afford the property Block joined in a partnership with the Bernheim Brothers who already owned a highly successful distillery in the city. [See my post of December 10, 2014.] Bernard Bernheim became president;  Block was vice president.

With a capacity of producing 10,000 gallons of liquor per day, the Pleasure Ridge Park Distillery was able to turn out ample quantities of premier Kentucky whiskey, both bourbon and rye.  Having an assured supply of superior product from a distillery already known for quality, Block must have been euphoric as he contemplated the future.  Shown below is an ad depicting the distillery and listing its prime brands.

 

In March 1896, however, disaster struck while Block was away on a sales trip to New Orleans.  Fire destroyed a warehouse that contained an estimated 30,000 barrels of whiskey.  It started as an ember from a smokestack that landed on the roof of one of the warehouses. In less than ten minutes, the flames spread to the barrels aging on the upper floor, causing them to explode.  Flaming whiskey flew everywhere. The building collapsed.  Surrounding ditches overflowed with liquor as the adjacent landscape was inundated.  The nearby distillery structure itself luckily remained intact.

The Bernheims’ losses were moderate and covered by insurance. The bulk of the whiskey destroyed was in the name of Nathan who as a result was hit hard financially.  Moreover, the federal government claimed that the partners owed almost a million dollars (some $30 million today) in taxes on the lost liquor.  A few distillers had attempted to scam the feds by staging phony fires while their whiskey was stashed elsewhere. The government seemingly was taking no chances.

At great expense Nathan and his partners fought the fine in court for almost a year. The day before Thanksgiving in 1897, the Secretary of the Treasury canceled the bond, forgave the tax, and, in effect, freed Block and the Bernheims of any further liability.  In the meantime the Bernheims had built a completely new distillery at Seventh Street and Bernheim Lane in Louisville.  They sold their interest in the subsequently restored Pleasure Ridge Park Distillery to Block. 

To quote one observer: “While many a lesser spirit might have thrown in the towel, it was not in his nature. From the ashes he lifted himself, soon turning calamity to victory with the acquisition of the newly rebuilt distillery. At long last, Nathan Block had finally become the sole owner of his own distillery; a bourbon king of his own making!”  Block celebrated by adding two more brands to his offerings, “Kentucky Cornflower” and “University Club.”

Block also was distinguishing himself by community involvement.  He was president of the Standard Club, a Louisville golf course; a past master of the St. George Lodge, Free and Accepted Masons, and a member of the  the Commercial Club and Louisville Board of Trade.  Much of his effort was devoted to his Jewish heritage as president of the Temple Adath Israel congregation in the early 1890s and active in the charity work of the Hebrew Relief Society.

Throughout his early years Block had also found time for a personal life. In 1870, he had married Clara Gotthelf, a local girl.  Clara was 21; Nathan was 26.  They would go on to have a family of seven children, four daughters and three sons, all born between 1871 and 1889.  As his boys, Joseph and Bernard, advanced to maturity, Block brought them into his liquor business, eventually changing the name to Block & Sons Company.  Having suffered from asthma and other infirmities for years, in 1903 at age 59 Block retired from the enterprises he had built and left them to the management of his two sons.  If Block looked forward to a comfortable and trouble free retirement, however, that was not to be.

In 1907 after 37 years of marriage, Block’s wife Clara died, 56 years old.  A year later his eldest son Joseph, 35, the heir apparent to the Block liquor dynasty, was dead by his own hand.  For about five months before his suicide Joseph had suffered from depression, said in part brought on by his mother’s death and had been being treated at a mental hospital in Philadelphia.  On the day of his suicide Joseph gave no hint of what was to come. He went to the bathroom adjacent to his office, locked the door, took out a .38 revolver, stood in front of a mirror, and fired a bullet into his right temple.  In addition to a grieving father, Joseph left behind his widow, Cora, and two young children.  His brother Bernard assumed management of the distillery.

Block’s “tragedies” were not destined to end there.  Seven years after Joseph’s suicide, his youngest son, Walter, only 26 and unmarried, who had been troubled with ill health from adolescence, in 1915 repeated his brother’s deed.  While living at home with his father, Walter fatally shot himself, again standing before a mirror.  He was buried in Adath Israel Cemetery next to his brother and mother.  

The patriarch himself would die of natural causes at home two years later.  Block was 73 years old and joined family members at Adath Israel.  The family monument and his gravestone are shown below.  Block left an estate worth more than $3,000,000 in today’s dollar.  His will gave bequests to his children, grandchildren and several Jewish charities.

Block’s legacy has been summarized by one whiskey guru this way: “…He had indelibly left his mark in the annals of bourbon history.  Block’s whiskey brands continued to enjoy robust national distribution via his son’s aptly named “Block Bros” whiskey wholesale and brokerage business for nearly 20 years until the onset of Prohibition.”

Note:  This post has been made possible by three principal sources.  The 1886 publication, The Industries of Louisville, etc., provided details of Block’s early days in business.  “Block, Our Story” from an organization reviving the brand online filed in distillery details and is the source of the quote that ends this vignette.  The 2021 book, Bluegrass Bourbon Barons, by Byron S. Bush devotes a chapter to Block and is the source of  information on his sons’ suicides. 

 

 

Born in Northern Ireland, James “Paddy” Graydon became a noted figure in the American West who confronted rampaging Indians, Confederate soldiers and gun-toting outlaws during a single violent decade (1853-1863) punctuated by his running an Arizona drinking establishment and hotel the locals called Casa Blanca.  The Graydon saga ended when he was killed by a bullet fired by a U.S. Army surgeon.

Graydon was born in 1832, the son of William and Mary McConnell Graydon, in the impoverished Northern Irish village of Lisnakea, adjacent to the town of Enniskillen, County Fermanaugh.  As a boy he witnessed two calamities, the early death of his father and the beginning of the Irish Potato Famine during which an estimated million people died.   As soon as he reached maturity, Graydon took passage for America, arriving in Baltimore early in 1853.

“A fine lookin’ lad” at five feet, seven inches tall, blue eyes, brown hair, and a fair complexion, Graydon applied for and was accepted in the First Dragoons, an elite U.S. Army regiment, shown here.  He was sent for training at Carlisle Barracks in Pennsylvania and then ordered to the New Mexico Territory.  The trip was an arduous one, involving crossing the Appalachians on foot, then boarding a steamboat to Fort Leavenworth, Kansas Territory.  There began a 750 mile foot march on the Santa Fe Trail to the New Mexico Territory.  

Arriving in Santa Fe in August 1853, Private Graydon was deployed to Company G, stationed at a small outpost called Fort Buchanan.  His next five years would be full of action as the dragoons were summoned frequently to deal with marauding Indian bands menacing settlers.  Raised to corporal, the Irish youth apparently tired of being constantly on the move and applied for a discharge.  It was granted in April 1858.

Entranced with the Desert Southwest, Graydon, now 26, decided to stay and try his hand at running a saloon and hostelry.  Calling it the United States Boundary Hotel, he located it in a small settlement on the banks of the Sonora River, shown here, close to Fort Buchanan with its drinking population of soldiers.  A one-story adobe building it became known as the Casa Blanca.  Graydon advertised his hotel’s “fine assortment of wines, liquors, cigars, sardines…and good accommodations for the night.” 

His establishment apparently was an immediate success, helped by his forging a business relationship with Sarah Bowman, the most famous woman on the desert frontier.  Arriving at Casa Blanca in 1856, she already had a reputation for her attention to the needs of dragoons.  A large woman, accounted a heroine by many, she was described this way:  “They called her old Great Western. She packed two six-shooters, and they all said she shore [sic] could use ’em, that she had killed a couple of men in her time. She was a hell of a good woman.”

Likely the woman with a knife shown above in a painting of the Casa Blanca barroom, Sarah was able to help Graydon keep order among the tough gun-toting clientele that mixed desperadoes with soldiers — and women.  At the Irishman’s hotel: “Señoritas sang songs, waited tables and cooked, sometimes dealt cards, and always smiled at the rough patrons, laughed at their crude jokes and helped them to forget just how very far from home they were.”  Graydon’s place, it generally was agreed, was “a pretty tough joint, but a good saloon.”  The proprietor became the richest man in the valley, in the 1860 census owning real estate valued then at $3,000 and personal property worth $10,000.  His holdings included a farm and a small herd of beef cattle.

With his wealth came responsibility.  Eventually Graydon assumed the role of informal enforcer of local law and order, willing to engage in gunfights to drive out the outlaw element in the vicinity.  The Army also paid him a stipend, said to be a handsome $10,000 a month, as a scout and tracker of deserters from Fort Buchanan.

Graydon seems to have left that life behind behind in 1861 with the outbreak of the Civil War.  He rejoined the Army, this time as an officer, raising a company of irregulars that came to be known as “The Independent Spy Company.”  This unit provided Union forces with intelligence and harassed invading Confederates, troops largely made up of Texans.  Below is an artist’s depiction of what I believe is a painting of Graydon with straw hat and pipe leading his men tracking Rebel forces.

During this period, Graydon has been credited with instigating one of the most bizarre incidents of the American Civil War.  He planned what he believed was an ingenious night attack on Confederates camped across the Rio Grande.  With several of his men he loaded two aged mules with explosives and led them across the river.  About 150 yards from the Rebel camp, fuses to the shells were lighted and the mules were slapped on the rump and sent running toward the sleeping Texans.  Then Graydon and his  men waded back across the river toward the safety of their fort.   The mules, however, failed to move far and instead turned around and galloped back toward the retreating and suddenly panicked conspirators.

The night quiet suddenly was shattered by exploding shells that sent hundreds of Rebels out of their slumbers and on alert for attack.  Graydon and his men reached the safety of the fort uninjured.  The sole casualties of the Irishman’s gambit were two old Army animals.  Despite the outcome, Graydon and his “mule raid” became part of Civil War legends in the American Southwest.

Texan Retreat

Graydon and his men played a major role in the Union victory in the subsequent battle of Glorieta Pass.  The Texans, subsequently cut off from normal supply lines, began to suffer from a lack of food.  Recognizing the dire situation the Confederate general decided to evacuate the area and the soldiers began a slow withdrawal back to Texas, as illustrated below left.  The challenge by Rebel forces to the territorial Southwest was over.

Manuelito

After the Texans abandoned their foray into New Mexico, Graydon was given command of a company in the First New Mexico Cavalry.  His assignment was to subdue the fierce Mescalero Apaches who were harassing settlers in the territory.  In October 1862 the commander was approached by a group of Apaches in the mountains north of Fort Stanton.  A confrontation ensued, an incident controversial in its origins, in which Graydon ordered his troops to fire on the Indians.  At least 11 Apaches were killed and more than 20 wounded.  Among the dead was Manuelito, a famous Apache chief.  The slaughter left the American troops untouched, but the event would doom Paddy Graydon.

The Irishman was reprimanded by his superiors, including Colonel “Kit” Carson who had assumed the command of Fort Stanton.   Shortly thereafter a letter appeared in a Santa Fe newspaper recounting the event and denouncing Graydon’s order to fire as “barbaric treachery.”  The letter was written by an Army surgeon and friend of Carson’s named Dr. John Marmaduke Whitlock.  The doctor not long after visited Fort Stanton calling out Graydon as “a murderer” and “a thief” because he had confiscated the Apaches’ horses.

Word soon got back to Graydon who confronted Whitlock, demanding to know if he had called him “an assassinating, cowardly son of a bitch.”  After Whitlock admitted as much, the Irishman handed him a letter presumably challenging him to a duel.  The doctor agreed to meet Graydon the following day.  The following morning Graydon is said to have confronted Whitlock again.  He is recorded saying:  “If you come to this post again and insult an officer, I will horsewhip you,’ ‘I am an officer and you are a pimp that follows the army.”   At that Whitlock drew his pistol and fired at Graydon who immediately shot back.  Both men missed and took cover.

A fire fight ensued.  Suddenly Graydon grabbed his chest and shouted, “The son of a bitch has killed me.”  The Irishnan fell dying, as depicted above in a illustration.  His troopers, who had heard the gunfire, rush to the scene.  They found their leader dead and Whitlock wounded in the side and hand, but alive.  When the doctor attempted to flee, Graydon’s soldiers pursued him and shot him down, pumping round after round of bullets into his lifeless body.  Kit Carson later assessed that more than 100 shots had been fired at Whitlock.

Graydon was given a military funeral at Fort Stanton with as much dignity as could be mustered in that dusty outpost.  He lay buried there for the next 24 years as his legend grew in the Desert West.  His body subsequently was moved to the National Cemetery in Santa Fe where his tombstone, shown here, still can be seen.

Only about 30 years old when he died and little more than a decade removed from his arrival in the United States, James “Paddy” Graydon had seen more danger and violence during his foreshorten years than others see in a lifetime.  Of such are legends made.  

Note:  The story of Paddy Graydon’s life and untimely death has been told repeatedly on Internet sites.  Additionally, Historian Jerry D. Thompson, has written a highly informative book about his life and exploits entitled “Desert Tiger:  Captain Paddy Graydon and the Civil War in the Far Southwest.”  It can be purchased at online book sites or from the University of Texas at El Paso “Texas Western Press.”  

 

Foreword:  This is the third in a series of posts demonstrating how American whiskey distillers, rectlfiers (blenders), and wholesalers used the image of Uncle Sam prior to 1920 as the Prohibition “noose” tightened on the industry.  It was a ploy to lend a patriotic aspect to their marketing.  But as the cartoon shown above indicates, the force of “dry” also saw Uncle Sam abetting liquor interests by profiting significantly from the taxes collected.   Before 1920 the largest source of federal revenues was excise taxes on alcohol.

The trade card from “Wolf’s Famous Distilling Company” of Kansas City was a typical depiction of Uncle Sam in the whiskey trade.  The old gentleman is pointing to a federal revenue stamp on “Wolf’s Monogram Whiskey” that indicates it has been “bottled in bond,” that is, under government mandated conditions that dictated length of aging, alcoholic strength or “proof” and other requirements in return for delayed taxation.  Although the claim that the stamp guaranteed “strength” might have some validity, it had nothing to do with quality or purity.

“Freeland Sour Mash” was a whiskey brand from Henry W. Smith & Company of Cincinnati.  Although this outfit has been described as operating a distillery in Covington, Kentucky, across the Ohio River from 1890 to 1901, records indicate that Smith was a rectifier, re-distilling and blending whiskeys obtained from Kentucky distilleries, particularly several in the Covington area, Federal District #2.  It somewhat strange then that Uncle Sam is shown sitting whittling on the 7th District in Kentucky, some distance from Cincinnati. 

The Yellowstone Whiskey ad specifically identifies Uncle Sam with “Bottled in Bond.  A whiskey wholesaler, the firm of Taylor & William was established in Louisville just after the Civil War in 1865.  In 1871 the sales manager, Charles Townsend, made an annual trip to the West Coast. En route he visited the newly opened Yellowstone National Park and, noting the enthusiasm over this natural wonder, decided it might be a good idea to name a whiskey after it.  Viola!  a national brand was born! 

This tradecard from what purports to be “Mascot Rye,” is an unusual depiction of Uncle Sam.  In the first place, he is without his trademark top hat and bears a collar on which is written “honest and good as I am.”  The label on the bottle bears an image of a horseman riding through a horseshoe and identifies J. Polsnek” of Akron, Ohio, as the source of the whiskey.  My extensive research on Polsnek and Mascot Rye has failed to reveal any information on either.

By contrast, George Benz & Sons are well documented St. Paul, Minnesota, whiskey wholesales and eventually distillers, after buying the Blue Ribbon Distillery in Eminence, Kentucky.  One of the company’s premier brands was “Uncle Sam’s Monogram Whiskey.”   The image of Uncle, however, gives him dark skin, looking like a strutting performer in black face.

A second representation of this whiskey in a Benz saloon sign, finds him safely white, albeit with a pot belly.  George Benz and his wife bore five sons, many of whom entered the business. In 1887, the name was changed to George Benz & Sons to reflect their role in the business. The sons continued the enterprise following George Benz’s death in 1908 at age 69, switching to real estate upon the advent of Prohibition in 1918. 

This ad for McCulloch’s Green River Whiskey, a major Kentucky bourbon is more subtle in its identification of Uncle Sam with the product.  In the background, is one or more “guagers,” federal officials tasked with testing each barrel from the distiller to ascertain the “proof,” i.e. percentage of alcohol contained on which the tax can be levied.  It may be symbolic That Uncle Sam is looking away from the testing process and busy whittling.  Too often, it seems, distillers bribed the gaugers to under-report the alcoholic content and lower their tax obligations. 

Theodore Netter, one of several Philadelphia brothers who were in the liquor trade, united two symbols of America for his trade card.  Uncle Sam stands on one side and (Miss) Freedom, here wrapped in the flag, stand toasting each other.  Netter adds in a shield to claim that his blended  — and not bottled in bond — “American Famous Fine Whiskey” is “guaranteed under the National Pure Food Act.”  This was yet another false claim in an effort to appear government approved.  The food and drug authorities soon reacted to such claims and levied sanctions against their use.

The notion of not just one but two symbols of the United States also appealed to the Scottish makers of Haig Whiskey.  A trade card for American consumers featured Miss Liberty of statue fame holding aloft a bottle of the famous pinch bottle while Uncle Sam takes an obsequious bow before this United Kingdom import.   Haig distillery, now known as the Cameronbridge Distillery was founded in 1824. In 1830, it became the first distillery to produce grain whiskey using the column still method.  

Each of the images above was created before 1920 and the advent of National Prohibition.   After Repeal in 1934, and the effective end of the “dry” threat, the use of Uncle Sam as a symbol for whiskey merchandising largely came to and end.  From time to time, however, a whiskey-maker will decide to resurrect the image in whole or in part.  One of the nation’s oldest and most iconic brands not so long ago decided to advertise its longevity at Christmas time by stowing a bottle with a gift package in Uncle Sam’s top hat.   The simplicity of the design can be compared with those shown earlier.

Note:  The two prior treatments on this blog that featured Uncle Sam in liquor ads were “Enlisting Uncle Sam as Booze Salesman,” January 17, 2023, and “Return of Uncle Sam – Whiskey Salesman,”  April 16, 2024.  This website also contains posts devoted to Benz, Sept. 22, 2011; Netter, Jan 2, 2013; and McCulloch, April 1, 2014.

 

Hiron Corbin clearly had something to prove.  Given an unusual first name by his parents, born in a small village and educated in a one room school house, Corbin washed put of the Union Army after five months and was burned out in the Great Chicago Fire of 1870.  Working hard at making his mark, Corbin found that the key to recognition was moving to Cincinnati and giving away whiskey in small ceramic jugs.

The son of John and Mary Etta Corbin, Hiron was born in November 1843 and received his early education in Armada, Michigan, a farming town of 800 residents about 40 miles north of Detroit.  During the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Armada had a stagecoach stop, an opera house, a theater, seven grocery stores, three hotels, three hardware stores, a lumberyard, a grain mill, two implement dealers, a bakery, five doctors, several blacksmiths shops, and a drug store. It also held the school house where Corbin got his basic education.  When he was old enough the boy was put to work on the fields, captured in the 1860 federal census as a 17-year old “farm laborer.”

Corbin also achieved some musical education that resulted with the nineteen-year-old enlisting for three years as a bugler when the Civil War broke out.  Inducted in Armada in August, 1862, he under went basic training in Detroit with the Fifth Michigan Cavalry, Company E, only to be honorably discharged the following December.  Such early separations were common in the opening days of the conflict as many soldiers contracted diseases deemed by army doctors to be permanently disabling.  Many years later Corbin would apply for and receive a pension.

After his discharge Corbin’s whereabouts become hazy.  He is known to have moved to Chicago where, according to city directories, he was employed as a clerk.   A brief synopsis of his life indicates without specifics that at the time of the Great Chicago Fire of October 1870, “he lost heavily.”  Following the disaster, Corbin moved into the Ogden House, a mansion become a rooming house. Shown here, the building had been saved from the conflagration by citizens draping it with sheets reputedly soaked in water and cider. 

During this period, Corbin was twice married.  His first wife was Elnora Woodbeck, to whom he was wed only a short time before her untimely death, perhaps in child birth. She was only 21.  Four years later Corbin remarried  Catharine Ophelia Hicks, 22,  of Chicago.  They had no children, but adopted a daughter named Veda.  The Corbin marriage would endure for 46 years until Hiron’s death.

Corbin’s immediate post-fire years are lost in the mists of history. The next glimpse of him is in 1895 when he would have been 51 years old, living in Cincinnati and “come lately” to its booming liquor industry, at the time deemed the largest in the Nation.  As a newcomer to an already overcrowded field of self-described distillers, wholesale and retail liquor dealers, pharmacies with proprietary brands, and saloons bottling their own liquor, Corbin faced the daunting dilemma of finding a way to distinguish his whiskey from this wall of competition.  He chose the path of merchandising his whiskey by giving away samples, thousands of them, in small ceramic jugs, each holding a swallow or two of his alcoholic wares.

Corbin was not the first liquor dealer to employ this method of advertising.  Giving away “mini jugs” to advertise was a fairly standard practice in the trade and at the time perfectly legal in most states and locales (although not today).  The former farm boy from Michigan took generosity to a new level, however, issuing a wide variety of small pottery containers containing his liquor.  His flagship brand was Hoffman House, named for a New York City hotel that advertised itself as a “favorite family hotel” but was widely known for its lavish display of nude paintings and statues. (See my post of October 4, 2023).  Corbin issued at least one saloon sign in the undress genre, shown left.

Shown here are a variety of mini jugs Corbin issued under the Hoffman House brand name, a label he did not register with the Federal Patent and Trademark Office until 1906.  These minis came in two versions, blended whiskey and rye.

In addition to Hoffman House whiskey, Corbin featured almost a dozen other brands, including “Buckeye Rye,” “Frank Gibson’s Old Rye”, “H F C & Co.”, “H. F. Corbin’s Old Windsor,” “King Rex,” “Lenox Club,” “Old Windsor Club,” “Palisade Club,”  “Robin Hood,” “Old Howard,” and “Herrmann.” 

The proprietor issued mini jugs for many of those labels.  Corbin trademarked only H.F. C. & Co. and Robin Hood, even then waiting until 1906 after Congress had strengthened protections.

Middle aged when he entered the crowded liquor field in Cincinnati, Corbin continued to guide the fortunes of his liquor house for two decades until 1912 when he turn over management to others and retired with Catherine Ophelia to a home in Port Huron, Michigan, forty miles from his home town, Armada.  Their Port Huron house, still standing, is shown here.

As Corbin reached 70 years his heath began to falter.  In May 1914, he was diagnosed with a inoperable malignant growth in his throat.  Lingering for seven months Hiron Corbin died in mid-December 1924.  After a funeral at his home, he was buried in the nearby Richmond Cemetery.  His widow would join him there two years later.  Note that Corbin’s grave, shown below,  is flanked by an American flag, noting his service (albeit brief) in the Civil War.

Hiron Corbin’s mini jugs, seemingly existing by the hundreds and frequently on auction sites, provide a continuing reminder of this Michigan farm boy with an unusual first name who achieved a modicum of success and fame in the whiskey trade by “thinking small.”

Note:  This post was assembled over many years as additional Corbin mini-jugs came to the surface and it became evident that he was far and away the most prolific distributor of these miniature advertising items, not only in Cincinnati but in the Nation.

 

                

Foreword:  The recent attempt on the life of former President Trump at a campaign rally brought to mind an incident more than a century ago when a “whiskey man” attempted to assassinate former President Theodore Roosevelt in Milwaukee as he campaigned to win a third term as a candidate on the Bull Moose Party ticket.

On September 15, 1912, a New York City saloonkeeper named John Flammang Schrank jotted this note:  “In a dream I saw President McKinley sit up in his coffin, pointing at a man in a monk’s attire in whom I recognized Theo. Roosevelt.  The dead president said “This is my murderer, avenge my death.”  Schrank’s dream set in motion events that ended with a bullet in Roosevelt’s chest, one he carried for the rest of his life.

Schrank was born in Erding, Bavaria, in March 1876 to Katharina Auer and Michael Schrank, a carpenter.  His father died when he was three years old, ushering in a period of instability in his family life as his mother moved from relative to relative.  Nonetheless, young John was able to get a good education, accounted an “outstanding student.”  When he was 12 his life changed abruptly when he was adopted by a paternal aunt, Anne, and her husband, Dominick Flammang, a childless couple who had immigrated to the United States and New York City in the 1850s.  In October 1889 on the Steamship Fulda, shown here, they brought John back with them after a visit to Germany, listing him as their son.

New York saloon

The boy quickly adjusted to his new environment, living in a tenement in predominantly German area of the Lower East Side.  He attended night courses  to learn English.  A voracious reader, he acquired a keen interest in American history and politics.  The Flammangs owned a saloon, largely frequented by the Germanic population.  From the age of 12, Schrank was put to work there, initially as a busboy and upon arriving at maturity, as a bartender.

In 1905 his Uncle Dominick retired.  He passed ownership of the drinking establishment to his 29-year old adopted son.  The Flammangs retired and moved away.  Needing new lodging, Schrank began living in a spare room with the Ziegler family, a widow and three of her adult children.  The newly minted saloonkeeper developed a strong affection for Emily Ziegler, a girl nine years his junior, feelings Schrank believed were mutual.

The General Slocum Disaster

In June 1904, Emily was one of 1,342 passengers aboard the General Slocum steamship being ferried to a Lutheran church picnic. A fire broke out in the ship and it sank in the East River, the worst maritime disaster in New York history.  Emily was among the estimated 1,021 victims.  Called to identify her body, Schrank told the press variously that she was his girl friend or fiance’.  Emily’s death seemed to “unhinge” the saloonkeeper.  Previously known as “mild-mannered, reserved but cheerful…and well liked by patrons,” he showed signs of mental illness, a known malady in his family,  and began to drink heavily.

Nonetheless, Schrank was sufficient cogent to return to Germany in 1906 to collect an inheritance and later to benefit from inheriting the Flammangs’ estate.   This newly acquired wealth allowed him to sell the saloon.  Now having a substantial bankroll but no employment, he dabbled in real estate and insurance, losing money and falling behind on his hotel bills.  His delusions took over his life.  He fixated on Theodore Roosevelt, opposing his run for a third term and believing his candidacy was backed by “foreign powers.”  Schrank concluded that his dream was a vision sent by God. It was his duty to stop Roosevelt’s candidacy even if it meant killing the former President.  He would be an instrument of the Almighty.

For $14 Schrank purchased a .38 caliber Colt revolver, shown here, and began stalking Roosevelt on the campaign trail during the autumn of 1912.   After borrowing money from an acquaintance, he took a steamship hoping to encounter Roosevelt in New Orleans but did not.  Schrank later revealed that over the next 24 days he followed the former President to Charleston South Carolina; Atlanta, Chattanooga, Evansville Indiana, Indianapolis and Chicago.  At each location complications arose about getting close access to Roosevelt.  In Chattanooga he was within 10 feet of his target but said he was “too nervous to shoot.”  

Discovering that Roosevelt would be in Milwaukee on October 14, Schrank went there to wait.  From the local newspapers he learned that Roosevelt would be staying at the Gilpatrick Hotel located downtown at 223 Third Street and not far from the Milwaukee Auditorium where he was to speak.  Schrank found a comfortable spot to wait at Herman Rollfink’s saloon across the street from the hotel. 

In the Germanic drinking environment he knew so well, Shrank told bystanders he was a journalist, downed beers and made no effort to remain inconspicuous.  Just before 6:00 p.m. he left the saloon to watch Roosevelt arrive at the hotel, where the former President ate and rested.  Returning to Rollfink’s, Schrank requested that the house band play “The Star Spangled Banner.”  He solo danced as they did and bought drinks for the band members.  Before leaving a second time about 8 p.m. he bought drinks for the house.  Shrank was on a high. He had seen an opening to his objective.

About 8 p.m. the would-be assassin crossed the street, joining a small group of locals gathered to see Roosevelt depart for his speech at the Milwaukee Auditorium.  Schrank selected a spot less than five feet from the open car where the candidate would be riding.  After leaving the hotel, Roosevelt stood in the back seat and raised his hat to the crowd.  Pushing his way forward, Schrank shot him at point blank range.  The photo above marks their relative positions.  Denied a second shot by being wrestled to the ground, Schrank was captured immediately.  Asked if he been hurt, Roosevelt initially denied it, quoted saying:   “Oh no, missed me that time. I’m not hurt a bit.”  With that, the car moved off to the speech site.

The Milwaukee Auditorium, the largest venue in the city at the time, buzzed with anticipation as Roosevelt entered.  Their mood changed dramatically as the former President opened by saying:  “I don’t know whether you fully understand that I have just been shot, but it takes more than that to kill a Bull Moose. The bullet went in here–I will show you.” He then opened his vest and showed the bloody stain on his shirt. The audience gasped.  Roosevelt then gave a 50 minute speech before accepting medical help.

 

That night the former President continued on the campaign trail, entraining to Chicago and checking into a hospital there.  X-rays confirmed that the bullet had penetrated his chest and broken a rib on the right side.  He had not been more seriously wounded because the bullet had been slowed by his spectacle case and his fifty page speech folded in his pocket, shown above right.  Determined to be too dangerous to remove, the bullet was carried by Roosevelt for the next seven years until his death.  He lost the election, splitting the Republican vote and abetting the victory of Democrat Woodrow Wilson.  

Schrank immediately was arrested and held in the Milwaukee County jail.  From the beginning questions arose about the former saloonkeeper’s mental state. The Milwaukee Sentinel [a newspaper for which I later worked] published a special edition on the day following the incident, headlined: “Insane Man Shoots Roosevelt.”  A  Sanity Commission of five local doctors was appointed to examine Schrank.  They concluded:  First—John Schrank is suffering from insane delusions, grandiose in character, and of the systematized variety.  Second—In our opinion he is insane at the present time.  Third—On account of the connection existing between his delusions and the act with which he stands charged, we are of the opinion that he is unable to confer intelligently with counsel or to conduct his defense.

A Milwaukee judge concurred.  Schrank was committed to the Northern Hospital for the Criminally Insane in Waupun, Wisconsin, where he lived for the next 31 years, dying there of pneumonia in September 1943.  He was 67.  His body was given to the Marquette University School of Medicine in Milwaukee for use in physician education.  There would be no gravesite, no memorial stone. 

The Waupun Hospital

 

It has been reported that Schrank had no visitors and received no mail during his many years in the mental institution.   Said to be a model prisoner, however, he occasionally was allowed to go to into the town of Waupun on his own.  Nonetheless, his manias persisted.  When Franklin Roosevelt ran for and won a third term in 1940, Schrank reputedly told a guard that if he were free, he would try to interfere.

Note:  This article principally was derived from two excellent Wikipedia entries, one on the Roosevelt assassination attempt and the other on Schrank himself.  The photos all were accessed from the Internet. In 1926 a memorial plaque commemorating the assassination attempt was placed at the front of the Gilpatrick Hotel. The plaque currently is attached to the Hyatt Regency Hotel, now on the site.  It was there for delegates to the recent National Republican Convention in Milwaukee to contemplate as they also processed the recent assassination attempt in Bethel Park, Pennsylvania.