Author name: Jack Sullivan

 As an Irish immigrant boy of ten, John E. Cassidy found in America a promised land, rising from “butcher’s boy” to become a Massachusetts millionaire through his prosperous Boston liquor house.  Cassidy’s journey to success and wealth, however, was plagued with tribulations and personal sorrows beyond any which he, or anyone else, might have anticipated.

Born in Fermanagh, Ireland, in May 1836, John was the son of Mary McGovern and Peter Cassidy.  When he was about eight years old,  Ireland suffered a period of starvation, disease and emigration that became known as the Great Famine. The potato crop, upon which a third of Ireland’s population was dependent for food, was infected by a disease destroying the crop.  Irish by the thousands left their homeland for the United States, many choosing to live in Massachusetts.

The Cassidys fetched up in Lowell, shown below about 1850.  It was a city thriving as a major industrial center during the mid-19th century, attracting immigrant workers, including many Irish to its mills and factories.  Peter Cassidy went to work as a laborer but died two years after arriving in America.   Mary Cassidy, identified in the 1850 federal census — perhaps whimsically — only as “Mama,” was head of a household that included her six children and five boarders.

As the eldest son, John Cassidy likely went to work as early as possible but likely received some elementary education in the Massachusetts public school system,  then accounted America’s best.  His first recorded job was in a butcher shop, cleaning up and doing odd jobs.  That occupation reputedly was followed by working as a stone cutter and then opening a grocery store in Lowell at No. 6 Lowell Street.

By that time Cassidy was married.  In April 1859, in a Catholic ceremony, at the age of 23 he wed Mary Ann Haviland, 20.  The couple would go on to have a family of four children, two daughters and two sons.  The arrival of their first child, Mary Tracy, may have spurred Cassidy to leave Lowell and move 30 miles south to the Boston area where he was recorded as a “tradesman” and eventually opened a liquor business. The family resided in Watertown, a suburb ten miles from downtown Boston.

This period in Cassidy’s life encompassed the Civil War and there are some  references to his having served in the Northern Army during the conflict.  Helped by the researchers at the Watertown Historical Society (see below), I have been unable to confirm that service.  By the time a draft was initiated, Cassidy was 27 years old, married with one child, and gainfully employed.  No evidence so far has been found of his having enlisted or been drafted.  One possibility is that, like my own (yes) grandfather, he participated in a “home guard” during the conflict. 

Cassidy quite clearly had a excellent business mind and rapidly built the reputation of his liquor house, initally located at Boston’s No. 11 Central Wharf, on the waterfront, shown above.  The proprietor was advertising as an importer of “brandy, wine, and gin” and “receiver of “Kentucky bourbon & rye whiskey.”   Before long the need for more space occasioned a move to 50-52 Broad Street at the corner of Milk Street.  It would become Cassidy’s permanent location.

As a merchant, Cassidy featured a blizzard of liquor brands, including “Atwoods Pure Alcohol,” “Beech Grove,” “Boat Club,” “Charles River,” “Chestnut Hill,” “Cumberland Club,”, “G.O. Taylor,” “Grave’s,” “Grave’s Maryland Malt,” “Hub Punch,” “Judges Favorite,” “Kentucky Union,” “Old Heritage,” “Old Neptune,” “Pine Hill,” “Pure Old Neptune,” “Salt Mash Bourbon,” “Ye Old Pilgrim Rum,” and  “Old Kentucky Club House Whiskey.”  Those labels included liquors obtained from other Boston dealers, like Chester Graves (see post of February 15, 2023).  Cassidy’s flagship brands were “Machinaw Whiskey” and Machinaw Rye,” advertised on shot glasses given to wholesale and retail customers.

In addition, Cassidy was marketing other proprietary brands, trademarking “Old Neptune” and “Salt Marsh Bourbon” in 1875.  He must not have felt the official stamp was worth the money and effort, however, and waited until 1906 when the trademark laws were strengthen by Congress to register “Mackinaw Rye,” “Pine Hill Whiskey” and “Old Pilgrim Rye.”  These liquors likely would have been “rectified” at his Boston headquarters from barrels purchased from distillers and blended to achieved desired color, taste and smoothness. 

Cassidy proved to be an excellent businessman, growing in wealth and prestige in the Boston area.  Although it was not a showy mansion, he ensconced Mary Ann and his children in a comfortable three story house in Watertown.  Shown above, it still stands at 227 North Beacon Street.  The whiskey man’s primary investments were in land.  A portion of an 1898 map of Watertown designates a number of parcels he owned.  Among them was a pine-covered parcel along the Charles River where Cassidy established a saw mill and rapidly harvested the timber.  Commented the Watertown Enterprise:  “To those who see this property since the trees have been cut it is a great surprise as the entire landscape has been changed.”

Cassidy had an plan for the timbers.  They would be part of a steamboat he would build on property he owned adjacent to the river.  As townsfolk watched in awe, the outlines of the first — and only — steamship ever constructed in Watertown began to take shape along a tributary leading to the Charles River.  In In a bow to his resident city Cassidy named it the S.S. Watertown.  Shown below in an artist’s painting of the scene, the steamship was launched on July 30, 1890, as  the thousands of locals looked on to applaud the achievement.

The S.S. Watertown, was 134 feet long, about 21 feet at its greatest width, and built to haul as  much as 400 tons.  During its short lifespan, the ship principally was used for excursion trips from Boston to nearby ports during the summertime and hauled goods from Boston to Lynn, Massachusetts, the rest of the year.  Barely two years after its launching, in September 1892 as the ship was headed to Lynn loaded with groceries, furniture and other merchandise, a fire broke out — ushering in the first of Cassidy’s travails.

As the fire spread, the captain wisely beached the ship to allow the passengers and crew to wade or swim to shore.  Unfortunately, one woman, afraid to jump, was thrown overboard by her husband to save her from the flames, dashed her head on the ship’s propellor and was killed.  The fire consumed the entire cargo and left the vessel a smoking hull.  Towed to Cassidy’s shipyard in April 1893 the S.S. Watertown was bought by a coal dealer planning to restore it.  The shipyard never built another.

The year 1893 also ushered in a series of legal problems for Cassidy as the Boston-centered Metropolitan Sewerage Commission, exercising “eminent domain,” seized a strip of Cassidy’s land twenty feet wide and totaling 50,000 square feet to construct an underground sewer.  Claiming damages for the value of the strip, as well as compensation for the effects of the seizure on his adjoining land, the liquor dealer was forced to launch expensive litigation that dragged on without resolution for almost a decade.

The resulting drain on his resources, estimated at millions of dollars,  eventually resulted in Cassidy being threatened with bankruptcy, a story important enough to make New York Times headlines.  His financial troubles sent a shock through Watertown and environs.  Strongly supporting the liquor dealer, the Watertown Enterprise told the story behind Cassidy’s plight.  While he had large debts and 115 creditors, only two were pressing him into bankruptcy.  The most notorious was the American Distributing Company, known an arm of the “Whiskey Trust,”  a liquor combine with a penchant for using dynamite and other underhanded means for forcing its competition to sell out to it.   The other claimant was a whiskey brokerage allied with the Trust, holding only a small fraction of the debt.  

With no other creditors willing to join their effort, the two ended their campaign to bring Cassidy down.  The Enterprise concluded its defense of Cassidy with this commendation:  “His many personal and business friends will rejoice that this trying time for him is over and that he is now in condition to reach again that ultimate success in business which his character and ability so deeply merit.”  

In an 1898 Watertown city directory amid the loom fixers, tanners and cabinet makers, Cassidy was listed simply as “gentleman.”  A 1904 ad shows Cassidy fully back in stride.  Still operating from his Broad Street-Milk Street headquarters, he was advertising “Old Pilgrim Rum,’  “Crown Gin” and “Fine Kentucky Whiskies.”  His son, William, was working with him and the company name had been adjusted to John E. Cassidy & Son.

Cassidy’s most enduring sorrows, however, seemed endless.  Within the space of 17 years, 1890-1907, he would experience the deaths of his wife and three of his four children.   Mary Tracy, the couple’s first child, born in 1860 a year after the couple was married, died in 1890, only 30 years old.   In March 1889, Cassidy’s eldest son, John Junior, died.  He was only 27.  In April of the same year, Cassidy’s wife, Mary Haviland, also passed away.  She was 67.  Nine years later, son and partner William J. followed in death.  He also was only 27.  Shown here, at the Watertown cemetery of the family’s Saint Patrick’s Catholic Church, Cassidy erected a memorial dedicated to his three children, shown here, — each taken away in the bloom of their young adulthood.

At the time of the 1910 census, Cassidy, now 73, was living with his daughter, Katherine, her husband Peter Palmer, their five children, and a servant girl.  He was recorded in the census as a liquor merchant, indicating continued management of his Broad Street business.  He died on December 8, 1911 at the age of 75.  His funeral was held at the Church of Our Lady in nearby Newton, Massachusetts, reported to have drawn a large attendance.  Cassidy’s obituary in the Watertown Enterprise hailed him “for more than 50 years as one of Boston’s most respected merchants.”

Notes:   This post was made possible by the assistance of two specialists of the Watertown, Massachusetts, Historical Society, Joyce Kelly and David Russo. Ms Kelly was responsible for researching the newspaper files on John Cassidy held by the Society and providing them to me quickly after my initial inquiry to their organization.  Mr. Russo is the author of a detailed article on Cassidy’s steam ship that was published in the April 2012 Historical Society newsletter, “The Town Crier.”  Available online, the article provides a detailed account of the ship’s history.  My gratitude to both for their help.  They demonstrate once again the value of local history organizations.

 

 

On July 12, 2023, I posted an article entitled, “Booze and Bullets:  Mixing Whiskey and Hunting”  It focussed on the frequency with which pre-Prohibition liquor advertisements featured their products within a hunting motif.  As expressed by the bumper sticker above, drinking and hunting have a definite intimacy.  In the time since I have been able to gather other ads that make a similar point.

The first image leaves little to the imagination.  In this ad we see a hunter, shotgun at the ready, who has taken out a flask and is pouring himself a “snort” in the midst of his quest for game.  The text tells the story:  “A good time coming.”  Bagging his quarry is the only thing a sportsman enjoys more than the anticipation of “Cream of Kentucky Whiskey.”  This libation was a proprietary brand of the I. Trager Company of Cincinnati.  The company was being supplied by the Old Darling Distillery of Prestonville, Kentucky, and was in business from 1887 to 1918.

At left is a flask  and label of “Huntsman Straight Bourbon,” the product of the Wisconsin Liquor Company of Milwaukee.  Two hunters are about to join their dog by crossing a fence, a shotgun seemingly dangerously placed.  It suggests that the two have been nipping at their “Huntsman” already.  I have not been able to find much about the origins of this whiskey.  The Despres Company of Chicago sold a whiskey called “Old Huntsman.”

While the letterhead from R. B. Grainger Distilling Company does not overtly feature hunting, the Kansas City, Missouri, pre-Prohibition liquor house flyer that follows leaves nothing to the imagination.  It offers the public the a “handsome TRAVELERS FLASK with ALUMINUM DRINKING CUP with some extra fine OLD  R.B. GRAINGER Straight Kentucky Whiskey….This beautiful FLASK always comes in handy and they are especially convenient for your hip pocket when fishing and hunting….”   This company appeared in business directories from 1912 to 1917.

The Bernheim Brothers and their “I. W. Harper Whiskey” brought us the most subtle whiskey cum hunting image with the saloon sign shown here.  It has all the   familiar accessories of the well-decorated hunter’s cabin, replete with pelts, guns,  boots and a dog.  The I.W. Harper sign is hung discretely from trophy antlers and a wicker covered I. W. Harper jug sits awaiting on a table.  The colorful lithograph on tin is entitled “Here’s Happy Days.”

“Old Joe Perkins” was a whiskey from the Perkins & Manning liquor house of Owensboro, Kentucky.  They were “rectifiers,” mixing up whiskey received from a variety of Kentucky distilleries to create the desired taste, smoothness and perhaps even color.  The partners may have been doing their blending right at the providing distilleries, advertising that their whiskey was available by the barrel or in glass bottles by the case.  This image on a serving tray is a visual joke.  The hunter has killed a duck and instead of bringing him the bird, his dog has fetched a bottle of “Old Joe Perkins” to present him.

When Ohioans look around for the state’s most desirable whiskey bottles, the “Old Nimrod Rye,” shown here, should rank high on the list.  It was the brainchild of Leopold Adler who operated a wholesale and retail liquor house for almost three decades in Cleveland.  The liquor dealer registered this name and bottle image with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office on May 12, 1905.  The description on Adler’s application  reads: “A representation of the head of a barrel having thereon the picture of  a man aiming a gun at a bear which stands erect beside a tree with a log in front of him, associated with the words “Old Nimrod Rye Whiskey, Rich, Pure.”

Old Scenter was far and away Henry L. Griesedieck’s flagship brand.  The large sign here was given to saloons carrying his whiskey and indicates what the name meant.  The picture shows a stage coach passing a group of riders returning from the hunt.  With them are their hounds, some of them sniffing.  They clearly are the “scenters.”  A ghost-like billboard declaring “Drink Old “Scenter” Rye” appears on a stone wall behind the tableau.  At age 33 Henry had opened his wholesale liquor establishment located at 713-715 North Sixth Street in St. Louis — the address for its entire business life.  The success of this enterprise may be judged by the fact that within three years Griesedieck had opened a second liquor store at 19 South Six Street.

In 1884 Paul Jones, a forner Confederate officer, relocated from Atlanta to Louisville as a whiskey wholesaler.  Five years later when a local distillery came up for sale at a bankruptcy auction, he bought it for $125,000 and never looked back. With an assured supply of whiskey the Paul Jones Company became one of America’s largest distilling organizations.  Jones provided his client saloons with plenty of decorative signs for their walls, including this picture of dead fowl.

 This addition of another eight hunting motif whiskey ads, labels, and artifacts to those already posted provide ample testimony to the strong links that have existed for time immemorial  between alcohol and hunting — a relationship as fresh as the present.  The moral is:  If you don’t have a gun, stay out of the woods during hunting season and maybe even if you do.

Note:  A several of the “whiskey men” featured here have merited longer biographical treatment on this website in the past.  More detailed biographies may be found at:  Trager, July 10, 2019; Bernheim, Dec. 10, 2014; Griesedieck, Nov. 29, 2014, and Paul Jones, September 4, 2014.

Of the liquor dealers featured on this website, more than a few were important for advancing their ciies economically, socially or culturally.   Born in Elmira, Chemung County, New York, in 1850 John M. Connelly, who lived there throughout his life, was a force in his home town on all three fronts.  At  his death in 1929, the local newspaper hailed Connelly this way:  “…His vision was broad and he found his greatest pleasure in doing for his fellows.  He loved Elmira and its people, and in his time and efficient way, did much to make it the fine city it is today.”

Connelly was the son of  Margaret O’Brien and Cornelius Connelly, immigrants from Ireland during the Great Potato Famine.  The couple settled initially in Syracuse, New York, moving to Elmira prior to 1850.  Cornelius was a skilled stone mason, said to have been the foreman on the construction of major Elmira buildings.   The family was far from wealthy, however; the father was idled through the five month frigid winters of northern New York.

The parents seem to have recognized the unusual intelligence and drive of their son and made it possible for him to progress beyond his elementary education and graduate to the Elmira Academy, shown here.  This was a secondary school where Connelly concentrated on business-oriented courses.  Barely a year after leaving school, the youth had entered on his lifelong career in the liquor trade.

Connelly’s first employment was working for C. W. Skinner, who advertised himself as “Wholesale Wine and Liquor Merchant.”  With partners Skinner had established his liquor house in 1868, located at Nos. 2 and 3 Opera House Block on Elmira’s Carroll Street, shown here.  Eventually Skinner became the sole proprietor and hired Connelly who worked for him for the ensuing nine years.  One observer commented that during that period, the youth “thoroughly mastered the business in every department and enjoyed to an unusual degree the confidence and trust of his employer.”

When Skinner died in 1890, Connelly was chosen one of that whiskey man’s executors and asked to manage the business during probate.  The following May he was allowed to buy the company, operating from the same address but changing the name of the enterprise to his own.  Connolly also stepped up sales efforts, hiring traveling salesmen to expand the liquor house markets beyond Elmira and Chemung County to other parts of New York and into Pennsylvania.Commented one biographer:  “Under his capable management the business has increased and annually renders him a good income.”

Not a distiller but a “rectifier,” Connelly was blending whiskeys received from regional distilleries by rail and marketing the results under his own name.  He packaged those liquors in distinctive ceramic jugs.  As shown above, some containers simply had his name slanted along the front.  They were the creation of the Farrington ceramic works, a local Elmira pottery.  As shown below, Connelly also made use of other jugs to market his whiskey to wholesale customers in saloons, hotels and restaurants within his marketing area.

The same year Connelly acquired the liquor house, he also married.  His bride was Catherine Sheehan, a woman 13 years younger and only 18 at the time of their nuptials.  She was the daughter of Peter and Catherine Sheehan, both immigrants from Ireland.  Her father was listed in the 1870 census as a laborer.  The mother of their four children, Catherine, Gerald, Harold and Helen, Catherine proved to be an able helpmate and achieved her own reputation in Elmira for her civic work.

As the 1890s progressed, Connelly grew in his reputation as canny  businessman in the estimation of his peers in Elmira.  As a result when a Chamber of Commerce was created in the city he was chosen as its founding chairman.  Working out of the building shown here, he would hold the office for a decade or more, during which he was credited with bringing new industry and employment to Elmira, helping to swell its population.  

Kennedy hydrant

Among the industries attributed to Connolly’s leadership was the Kennedy Valve Corp. that located in Elmira in 1905 and is still in business there today, having provided employment for thousands of workers for more than 119 years. The company  is one of the world’s largest manufacturers of products for waterworks distribution, potable and wastewater treatment and fire protection.  Kennedy Corp. is most famous for its fire hydrants found worldwide.  

Hilliard factory

Also established in Elmira in 1905 with Connolly’s leadership and still operating there is the Hilliard Corporation, a manufacturer of filters, brakes, clutches and starters for industrial and commercial uses and for consumer equipment.  Its work requires an employee force of skilled machinists, as shown here.  Connolly’s obituary noted:  “The impetus given Elmira’s industrial and commercial life at that time is felt to this day.”   The sentiment is equally valid in 2024.

Majestic Theater

Connolly also played a role in the cultural life of his native city, fostering the opening of a state-of-the-art theater to present live performances.  Asked to speak at the opening of the Mozart Theater on East Market Street, Connelly, as Chamber president, told the assembly:  “The year 1908…the beginning of a new era in Elmira history.  The dream of a bigger, better and busier city is fast being realized.”  Later he was part of a 1922 committee that acted in an advisory capacity when St. Joseph’s Hospital began a building program to construct a new surgical center.

Meanwhile, the liquor dealer’s wife, Catherine, was active on behalf of a project known as “Federation Farm.”  This was a residential treatment center opened in Elmira in 1917 for children who were under-nourished, anemic, or exposed to tuberculosis.  Funded by private donations raised by Mrs. Connelly and a partner, the farm property, shown here, became a haven for youngsters whose wellbeing was imperiled.  They were removed temporarily from hazardous living conditions while building up their health. 

Forced to shut down his liquor house with the coming of National Prohibition, Connelly, now 70 years old, could occupy himself with his investment portfolio.  He was vice president of the Columbia Gold Milling and Mining Company of Colorado and also had substantial investments in the oil fields of New York and Pennsylvania.  Dying in late May, 1929, as Connelly approached 80 years old, the liquor dealer extraordinaire was buried in Elmira’s St. Peter and Paul Cemetery.  Catherine joined him there 20 years later, dying at the age of 87.

A fitting final word about this local boy who stayed at home to make his city a better place to live and work was provided by an unsigned editorial in the Elmira Star-Gazette:  John M. Connelly was a leader in business, civic and social affairs in Elmira during many active years.  His name is indissolubly connected with numerous enterprises, all of which throve under his leadership, and whether public or private, invariably achieved success.

Note:  This post was composed from a variety of sources available on the Internet.  Principal among them was Connelly’s biography in the 1902 publication “Biographical Record of Chemung County, New York,”  The S.J. Clark Publishing Co., New York & Chicago. and his obituary in the Elmira newspaper of June 1, 1929.  Unfortunately, I have been unable to locate photographs of Connolly or his wife and hope some alert descendant will see this article and provide them.

As a youthful immigrant from Germany, Adolph Hirschman took years and many miles to find his footing on the American business scene.  From New York he ventured to Savannah, Georgia, working for a grocery firm as a traveling salesman.  In 1882, saying farewell to the Sunny South, he headed 1,370 miles north to St. Paul, Minnesota, to open a saloon and liquor store.  Prospering there, Hirschman commissioned a saloon sign with himself as the central figure a picture that not long ago sold at auction for $35,000.

Shown below, the sign was created by a lithographic technique developed in Germany in which images were put on stone plates and subsequently transferred to metal sheets.   The technology swiftly was brought to  America and the Tuscarora Advertising Company.   By 1895 advertisers from all over the United States were sending in orders for metal signs to the Coshocton, Ohio, factory. Among them was one from Hirschman in St. Paul, who knew what he wanted.

Hirschman’s order for a sign likely included a preliminary design.  Entitled “East Meets West,” the 36 by 27 inch picture contained an ad for Hirschman’s flagship brand,  “Henry Hunter Fine Old Rye,” illustrated with a whiskey barrel.  Perhaps more important, two-thirds of the image depicted a cowboy addressing an elegantly outfitted man. Look closely at the latter. Then look at the photo of Hirschman, right.  The proprietor had placed himself on his saloon sign.  As if to leave no doubt, the suitcase at the feet of the figure is marked “A. H. & Co.”

When the sign, virtually pristine in a well-made oak frame, went up for auction several years ago, speculation arose that is was one of a kind.  While possible, I lean to the idea that Hirschman, while not making many copies, funded a few to give his very best customers.  He also made use of the image as his trademark, and featured it on his letterhead.

The man behind this iconic sign was born in March 1852 in Brandenberg, Germany, the son of Phillip and Mary (Caspari) Hirschman.  He was educated in its elementary and secondary schools.  While still in his adolescence, his mother died. When Adolph was 17, his father emigrated with the family to the United States, residing in Troy, New York, and working as a cigar manufacturer.  The youth’s early employment has gone unrecorded, but most likely he was engaged in the mercantile trades.

In 1876 Adolph married Rose Cohen, a New York City resident four years younger than he.  Their only child, Benjamin M., was born the following year.  This growing family may have encouraged Hirschman to look outside New York for employment. In the early 1880s, he moved wife and child to Savannah, Georgia, joining the wholesale grocery firm of Solomon Brothers as a traveling salesman.  

The company dated from 1873, owned by Henry Solomon and his brother, N.E. Solomon, immigrants from England.  Not long after Hirschman’s arrival, the brothers split.  In July 1882 Henry Solomon created a new company with his son, Alexander, as a partner.  Left “high and dry,” N. E. Solomon reached out to Hirschman with a proposition to co-own a wholesale and retail liquor house and saloon.  One catch:  The property was in St. Paul, Minnesota, 1370 miles north of Sunny Savannah in the frigid “North Star State.”  

Nonetheless, Hirschman jumped at the chance to run his own business.  Bundling up Rose and Benjamin, he quickly relocated to St. Paul, where he would live the rest of his life.  Although the details of their financial arrangements remain undisclosed, N.E. Solomon quickly exited the partnership, likely bought out by Hirschman. He now was in sole charge of a liquor house and saloon.  According to one account:  “He proved successful from the first and from small beginnings he has continually enlarged the scope of his operations until he now owns a very extensive business.” 

 

Among Hirschman’s gifts was an artistic eye, manifest in the well designed labels he gave his whiskeys, illustrated here on his “Red Wing Whiskey” label featuring an accurately drawn red wing blackbird.  Hirschman’s flagship brand was “Minnesota Club Whiskey,” available in quart and flask-sized bottles, as shown below.  He does not appear to have trademarked any of his house brands.

Hirschman advertised Minnesota Club widely, citing it as “A particular brand for particular people, to be had at all clubs and first-class buffets.  A trial will convince.”  He also provided the saloons, hotels and restaurants carrying his liquor with several different varieties of back of the bar bottles advertising Minneapolis Club.

 

His largesse to his wholesale customers extended to providing shot glasses and serving trays advertising his brands   At right is a tray that advertises Minnesota Club.  The hunting motif was a common one for Midwest whiskeys.  The tray likely was a products of the Tuscarora Company, noted for manufacturing those items as well as saloon signs.  

Having chosen Minnesota as his home, as he prospered Hirschman became  a major investor in its Mesabi Range Iron mines.  One of four major iron deposits in northern Minnesota, the Mesabi stretches 100 miles.  There the soft ore lay close to the surface to be scooped up from open pit mines.  The whiskey man’s  investments were concentrated at the Mesabi’s Canisteo mines in Itasca County.  They proved to be productive from their discovery in 1907 through the 1980s.

The Mesabi iron mines

Hirschman also was active in St. Paul’s civic and social life as a member of the local Masons, the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, the Sons of Hermann (a mutual aid society for German immigrants), Elks, St. Paul Auto Club, Association of Commerce, and the St. Paul Commercial Club.  He also served as vice president of Mount Zion Temple, a prominent local synagogue.

As his son Benjamin came of age, his father took him into the liquor house, first as a traveling salesman and in 1904 as a full partner.  The duo operated their liquor establishment successfully until closed in 1920 by National Prohibition.  Hirschman lived just long enough to see the “dry” law rescinded, dying in 1935.  He was buried in the Mt. Zion Temple Cemetery under the monument shown right.  His widow, Rose, joined him there three years later.

Summing up Hirschman’s career as a “whiskey man,” a biographer wrote: “He has ever manifested…indomitable perseverence, high intelligence and business sagacity.”  Hirschman also has left future generations an image of himself as he apparently would like to be remembered:   in formal dress, debonair, standing in front of his bar — seemingly fulfilling the elegant dreams of an immigrant boy.

Notes:  This post principally was drawn from two biographies of Adolf Hirschman. The first is from “History of St. Paul and Vicinity:  A Chronicle of Progress,” by Henry Anson Castle, 1912.  The second was “Men of Minnesota,”  author unidentified, published by R. L. Polk & Co., St. Paul, 1915.

 

The ceramic jug that introduces this post carries a simple message:  “Jas. Gioga, Goldfield, Nev.”  Behind that liquor container is the story of an Italian immigrant who came to America’s shores seeking his fortune, found it in selling whiskey to gold miners, and fathered one of the jazz stars of the 20th Century.  Although details of his life are few, enough information can be cobbled together about Giacinto “James” Gioga to tell an American success story.

Gioga was born in San Guisto, Canavese,  Italy, in March 1877, the son of Pietro and Catherine Bertetti Gioga.  His parents had him christened under the given name of Giocinto. It translates to Hyacinth, the name of a male saint of the 16th century, known as the patron saint of weightlifters and anyone in danger of drowning.  The boy grew up in San Guisto, shown here,  a picturesque small town near Turin in Northern Italy.

When Gioga was 17, seeking his fortune outside of his native land, the youth emigrated to the United States.  In November 1899 he embarked on the immigrant ship, SS La Bretagne.  Shown here, the La Bretagne was launched in September 1885, a ship built to serve a France to New York ocean route. It provided accommodations for 390 first-class, 65 second-class, and 600 third-class passengers.  Gioga was among the 600 in third class.

 

Landing in New York, Gioga wasted little time before heading to the American West, in the process anglicizing his given name to “James.”  His first stop was in Canon City, Colorado.  Centrally located in the state and known as the “Crossroads of Colorado,” this small city of about 4,000 was not a typical Western boom town.  It sits on the Arkansas River and abuts the Royal Gorge, cut by the river.  Although both oil and gold had been found in the vicinity the discoveries had led to modest growth but not the explosive populations being experienced in other Colorado mining towns.

What drew Gioga to this location is unknown.  He may have had Italian friends or relatives living there.  As a newly arrived immigrant, speaking little if any English, he must have been given a “hand up” the economic ladder.   Given Gioga’s future in the liquor and grocery trade, it would appear that he went to work in a local Canon City store and found his calling.

 

Now in his early 20’s, Gioga liked what he found in America.  Determined to settle here the immigrant reached back to San Guisto to the sweetheart of his youth, Rosa Galetto, asking her to join him in America — and marry.  Rosa, five years younger than “James,” endured the ocean crossing and stage coach journey. The two were wed in a Colorado ceremony.  In rapid fashion two sons were born from their union, Peter in 1903 and Bob in 1905,  the latter destined to become a well-known American musician. 

After a few months in Canon City, Gioga packed up Rosa and their belongings and headed three states and 870 miles west to Goldfield, Nevada. Goldfield was a true Western boom town, named for deposits of gold discovered near the site in 1902.  By 1904, the Goldfield district was producing 800 tons of gold ore, valued at $2.3 million, 30% of Nevada’s production.  This remarkable strike caused Goldfield to grow rapidly, and it soon became Nevada’s largest city and the Esmerelda County seat with a population of some 20,000. 

Arriving circa 1903, Gioga found a city in the process of explosive change.  The rapid transformation can be seen in the two photographs below. On the left is Goldfield in 1904, two years after its founding.  The muddy street holds hotels, saloons, restaurants and merchantile establishments, all frame buildings thrown up rapidly with little thought for permanence.  By 1906, seen right, the  main drag has been paved. Ramshackle structures were being replaced by brick and mortar buildings.

Gioga initially may have worked in an already establish Goldfield business.  His name did not appear in local directories until 1907.  At that time he is identified as proprietor of a retail liquor establishment, a designation that apparently included both saloons and liquor stores.  Totaling some 57, there was one liquor establishment for every 350 man, woman and child in the county.   Each paid $30 for an annual license to do business.

Despite the competition, Gioga appears to have prospered.  By 1914 he had added a line of groceries to his liquor offerings.  His primary customers were the miners who were swelling the population of the area.  Shown left below are the gold fields with the town in the distance.  Each of the mines employed dozens of workers, right below.  Gioga’s saloon was at the east end of the town, said to be “perfectly suited for thirsty, hot miners and prospectors coming in from the south.”  The young Italian immigrant prospered.

Goldfield miners

Gioga went a step beyond his competition by selling whiskey wholesale to the proliferating saloons in Goldfield and vicinity.  He apparently was receiving supplies by the barrel from distant distilleries through the Tonopah and Goldfield (T&G) Railroad, a line created in 1905 that survived until 1947. He decanted the barrels into ceramic jugs of several gallon capacity that were sold to the saloons dotting the local landscape.  Shown below, Gioga jugs are considered rare by collectors, with only a handful known.  One recently sold at auction for $7,000.

Although Gioga was not an American citizen, his immigrant status was no bar to his voting in local elections or, indeed, running for office.  Only a few years after arriving in Goldfield, he was nominated for the post of trustee, a two year term, under the banner of the Socialist Municipal Party.  Non-Marxist, this political organization was concerned about creating and enhancing local public infrastructure.  (A similar local Socialist Party, for example, controlled Milwaukee’s city hall for three decades.)  I can find no indication how Gioga fared in his electoral bid.

Gioga’s civic interests apparently did not extend to funding of city celebrations. In 1915 Gioga was recorded among local businesses contributing to the annual Goldfields July Fourth festivities, including a fireworks display.  While many local saloons were cited in the press for contributing $25 or more, Gioga chipped in a paltry $5.  He clearly had other priorities.  Registration records from 1917 indicate he spent a considerable sum on a new automobile.

As the decade progressed, growth faltered in Goldfield.   In the 1910 federal census, the town population had declined to 4,838. Among problems at the mines was the increasing cost of pumping salt water out of the pits, making them increasingly uneconomic. By 1912, ore production had dropped sharply. The largest mining company left town in 1919. In 1923, a fire caused by a moonshine still explosion destroyed many of Goldfield’s frame buildings. 

Gioga watched this decline from his saloon and store, also aware of the growing prohibitionary fervor in America.  Having prospered significantly for roughly a  decade in Goldfield, about 1918 he decided to pull out and relocate his family further west in Los Angeles.  Subsequent directories found him living  there with wife Rosa and their two sons in a modern home in what appears to be a gated community, shown below.  Although still a relatively young man, Gioga does not appear to have opened a saloon in the City of Angels. 

 

Now the spotlight shifts to the Gioga’s younger son, Bob, whose musical talent would bring him to the pinnacle of the American music scene of the early 20th Century and subsequent recognition in a Wikipedia entry.  Growing up in Los Angeles, Bob began to make a name for himself on the West Coast during the 1930s working with a series of dance bands.  Best known as a tenor and baritone saxophone player, shown below right, Bob also mastered the clarinet and bassoon.

Bob first gained national attention for his musicianship when he teamed with Stan Kenton, a good friend.  When Kenton formed his first band in the late 1930s, Bob joined him, making his first recording with Kenton in 1940 playing the tenor sax. He stayed on to anchor Kenton’s saxophone section until 1953 and appeared on virtually every recording session of the 40s and early 50s playing popular and jazz music.  Shown below is Bob, left, with Kenton.  About 1953 this Gioga, now married, retired from music.  During ensuing years the couple bought and operated a citrus farm. 

Meanwhile James Gioga and wife Rose must have basked in the attention their son was achieving on the national music scene. Throughout  his 37 years in this country, Gioga had never bothered to become an American citizen.  That changed in 1944 when he applied in the U.S. District Court of Los Angeles for naturalization.  He was granted citizenship.

Forest Lawn

 

Gioga would live another 19 years, dying in August 1963 at the age of 66.  He was buried in the famous Forest Lawn Memorial Park, Glendale, California. Rosa would join him there in 1972.  Living to be 94, Bob Gioga was buried near his parents in Forest Lawn after his death in 1999.

Note:  This post was composed from a wide range of sources.   Bob Gioga’s biography was drawn in part from an article in the publication “All Music.”

Foreword:  One way of approaching pre-Prohibition alcohol is to concentrate  on the cocktails of those times.  My one foray into that territory, to co-write a celebrity drinks recipe book, proved to be too complicated and the idea was dropped.  Now the Louisiana State University press has forged ahead with a series devoted to cocktails associated with New Orleans.  A just-published slim volume entitled “The French 75”  by John Maxwell Hamilton reveals how much history a cocktail can reveal.  It has spurred me to provide here brief vignettes of three notable American bartenders of the 19th and early 20th Centuries and the drinks associated with their names.

Orsamus Ward:  America’s First Celebrity Bartender.   Born in a bucolic corner of Massachusetts, a young man with the unusual name of Orsamus Willard (1792-1876) became America’s first celebrity bartender, earning a reputation that spread far beyond New York’s City Hotel. Caricatured here, Willard went from farm boy to a reputation as the “The Napoleon of Bar-Keepers.”

City Hotel

Starting as an office boy about 1811, Willard quickly impressed hotel management with his energetic and intelligent approach to his duties.  Able to write with either hand, his dexterity was noted as a skill that, accompanied by his outgoing personality and “urbane and courtly” manners, eventually fitted him to become the posh hotel’s principal bartender, a position he held for almost 27 years.  

An 1894 history of the Willard family was lavish in its description of Orsamus’ abilities:  “He acquired a wide reputation for…His never failing memory of names, persons, and events.  He…possessed in a remarkable degree the power of giving politely prompt and satisfying answers to the multifarious questions of guests, without interrupting the bookkeeping or other business details upon which he might be engaged.”

Just as important, Willard could whip up one helluva good cocktail. This from one patron: ‘Willard was one of the first in the city to concoct fancy drinks, and he introduced the mint-julep as a bar drink,’ frequently mixing them up three or four at a time.”  Among his other specialties were Whiskey Punch, Apple Toddy, and an Extra-Extra Peach Brandy.  An English traveler observed (with some exaggeration) that Willard’s name was “familiar to every American, and to every foreigner who has visited the States during the last thirty years [as] the first master of his art in the world.”   The result was his anointment as the “Napoleon of Bar-Keepers.”

Jerry Thomas was “King” of American Bartenders.  Described as “a gentleman all ablaze with diamonds,” Jeremiah P. “Jerry” Thomas (1830-1885) during his lifetime was a gold miner, (minor) Broadway impresario, art collector, inventor, gambler, reigning monarch of American bartenders, and the author of the nation’s first drinks recipe book.  Thomas’ “Bar-Tender’s Guide” published in 1862 during the Civil War, is still in print, available from multiple sources.  His signature cocktail was the “Blue Blazer.”

In his early 20s and restless, Thomas moved  to New York City in 1851 and opened a saloon below P.T. Barnum’s American Museum.  It was the first of four he would run in New York City during his peripatetic lifetime  He wore flashy jewelry and his solid silver bar tools and cups were embellished with gem stones.  Thomas became famous for the showmanship he brought to his bartending.

Thomas developed elaborate flashy techniques of mixing cocktails, sometimes while juggling bottles, cups and mixers..  His signature drink, depicted here, was the “Blue Blazer,” a fiery concoction thrown from glass to glass, as shown below.  Later he would claim the invention of the “Tom & Jerry.” Thomas also has been credited, probably erroneously, with the original martini.  His “Bartender’s Guide” was a first in the field.

In 1885 while running a Manhattan saloon, Thomas, 55,  died of a stroke.  His death occasioned obituaries around the country, particularly in the cities in which he had worked.  The New York Times opined that he was the Big Apple’s best known barkeep and “was very popular among all classes.”  Thomas was interred in Woodlawn Cemetery in the Bronx.

“The Ideal Bartender” Was Black Tom Bullock.  Born in Louisville, Kentucky, not long after the Civil War, Tom Bullock (1872-1964) was the son of former slaves who learned his bartending skills at the local Pendennis Club.  The use of African American bartenders was a Southern tradition, not replicated in northern states and Bullock made the most of it.  Honing his skills in a variety of venues, he finally became chief bartender at the exclusive St. Louis Country Club.  There he attracted influential patrons and a reputation that spread far beyond Missouri.  

A playful 1913 editorial in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch contended:   “Who was ever known to drink just a part of Tom’s? Tom, than whom there is no greater mixologist of any race.”   With the help of men like George Herbert Walker Sr.,

pater familias of American presidents and August Busch of Budweiser fame, in 1917 Bullock was able to publish his drinks recipe book, entitled “The Ideal Bartender.”  Now well more than a century old, it has never been out of print.

Bullock became particularly famous for his Mint Juleps. “The Ideal Bartender”contains two recipes – Kentucky Style and St. Louis Style. The former is the familiar Mint Julep he probably mastered at the Pendennis Club. The other recipe includes gin, lemon, lime juice, and grenadine, a non-alcoholic bar syrup. In a nod to Busch, “The Ideal Bartender” also includes a drink called Golfer’s Delight that used Bevo, a non-alcoholic beer that Anheuser-Busch developed in anticipation of Prohibition.

During the “dry” years, Bullock was forced to giving up openly dispensing alcohol.He remained employed for several years at the St. Louis Country Club performing unspecified duties.  He disappears from the public record after 1927. It is generally believed that Bullock lived until 1964, but almost nothing is known about his later years.  His drinks manual remains  his legacy and a continuing reminder of this extraordinary, indeed, ideal,  bartender.  

Notes:  Longer articles on each of these bartenders may be found elsewhere on this website:  Willard, June 13, 2022;  Thomas, Oct 12, 2022, and Bullock, July 7, 2022 (The last a reprint of an article researched and written by Michael Jones for the Louisville Tourist Bureau.)  Finally a word about the new book that generated this post, “The French 75” by John Maxwell Hamilton.  I recommend it for a delightful romp through the history, lore and many manifestations of this iconic cocktail.  Just published, the book is available from the LSU Press and Amazon Books. The author is interviewed at https://www.marketplace.org/2024/04/10/the-enduring-legacy-of-the-french-75-cocktail/.

The Kobre brothers, Max, Sam and Henry, left their native Lithuania in the late 1800s as thousand of Jews fled for safety from ruthless Russian pogroms.  Finding their way to Winston-Salem, North Carolina, they opened a saloon and adjacent restaurant.  In 1906 the Kobres found themselves enmeshed in a nightmare in which one brother was accused of murdering another, a case that for weeks rocked Winston-Salem to its core.  A whiskey jug conjures up the story.

Max was the eldest brother by 15 years, born in 1870.  He was followed by Samuel “Sam” in 1885 and the youngest, Henry, in 1887.  Their first American landing point was Baltimore but by the early 20th Century the Kobre boys had moved to Winston-Salem, North Carolina.  There Max had opened a saloon, one of dozens such establishments in the city.  Sam was tending bar there and Henry was managing an adjacent restaurant. The younger brothers were living together in a nearby rooming house.  Max was married to Sadie, another immigrant from Lithuania, and living with his family.

Although Winston-Salem, in this era, boasted a plethora of saloons and restaurants selling liquor, the city appears to have kept them under close scrutiny and a short leash.  It charged $1,000 annually ($25,000 in today’s dollar) for a saloon license and could rescind it for a variety of perceived offenses.  In March 1905 Max was hauled into court for keeping his saloon open after 8 PM and fined $22.10.  At the same time Henry was in the dock for a violation of the restaurant law, again for being open after 8 PM.  He was slapped with a similar fine.

While the Kobre brothers seem to have taken those infractions in stride, a year later their world would be torn apart by a horrendous series of events that made national headlines and dominated Winston-Salem for weeks.  On the evening of January 21, 1906, Sam Kobre returned to the room he shared with Henry.  There he said he found his brother, wearing his night clothes, lying on the floor in a pool of blood.  Assuming his brother was dead, Sam ran across the street to the Hotel Phoenix at 4th and Liberty Streets, shown below, where he phoned Max about the shooting.  He then went to the police station to report the crime. 

 

Two officers returned with Sam to the room where Henry was found apparently still clinging to life.  They placed the victim on the bed and called for an ambulance to transport him to the Twin Cities Hospital, shown left.  Shortly after arrival there, Henry was reported dead.  Sam told police he believed the motive for the murder was robbery.  Henry was known to keep substantial amounts of cash on hand, receipts from the restaurant, but his wallet was empty.

A coroner’s jury was convened on March 8, 1906. Considering the evidence from 9 a.m. until mid-afternoon,  it called several witnesses to testify, including Sam.

Following its deliberations the panel returned this verdict:  “Henry Kobre came to his death on the eighth of January by being unlawfully slain by someone unknown to the Jurors…The Jury examined several parties and their evidence was recorded.  Nothing was revealed, however, to give the officers, at present, a clue to the guilty party or parties.”

Meanwhile rumors and speculation abounded in Winston-Salem.  Much of the attention focussed on Sam himself.  After finding Henry bloody, why had he first gone to the hotel to call his brother, Max, and only then to alert the authorities? Why had Sam not realized Henry was still alive and immediately called for medical help? Other rumors circulated through the city, some of them publicized by the local newspapers.  The Winston-Salem Journal in particular reported a series of hearsay reports, quoting “thoroughly responsible persons” implicating the Kobre brother.  Congratulating himself for uncovering details previously unknown, a Journal reporter published an item about a local “Jewess” who suspiciously had gone to a fortuneteller in town for advice on two friends who were in deep trouble.  Sam and Max, of course were Jewish.  

Another source, at first anonymous in letters to authorities, fingered a man named William Plean, a salesman at a local clothing store.  Plean was single, an acquaintance of Sam Kobre, and living in the same boarding house as the informant.  Discussion of the murder made Plean nervous, said the source, later identified as a man named Shouse.  The stories triggered a 16-year-old woman named Sallie Stewart, a known local “soiled dove,” to come forward to confirm Kobre’s and Plean’s involvement in the murder.  She identified Sam as the shooter.  Sallie also implicated a third man she called “Finger,” who she said had masterminded Henry’s killing. 

 

That was all it took for local authorities, under strong pressure from the mayor, to arrest Sam and Plean for murder and later to identify “Finger” as a traveling salesman named J.E. Whitbeck.  He too was arrested and jailed with the other two while awaiting trial.  Virtually unsaid went a likely motive for Sallie to lie.  Sam Kobre, apparently unaware of her reputation, in March 1905 had married Sallie.  When Sam found out more about his bride the union was short-lived.  Sallie obviously had since nursed a grudge.  To keep the pressure on their star witness, the mayor had her arrested and imprisoned on charges of prostitution.  

Courthouse

The stage was set for the trial, May 31, 1906, at the Winston-Salem courthouse. The three men stood in peril of being hanged.  Earlier the Journal had suggested that the evidence looked strong against the defendants and took a semi-victory lap, declaring:  “If the Journal has aided in bringing to justice the murderers of Henry Kobre, it has done a distinct service of great value to this city.”  The outcome would be disappointing to the newspaper.  Witness after witness came forward to established that none of the accused men were present at the times and places of Sallie’s allegations.  It became clear that Sam’s ex-wife had concocted the story, likely to get revenge for his having divorced her.  Her motivation for implicating Plean and Whitbeck were less clear but she may also have harbored grudges against them.

After all the evidence had been submitted, Judge Peebles instructed the sheriff to usher the jury of 12 men out of the courtroom. He then addressed the prosecution lawyer, asking him to show him where any evidence existed against the three men other than Sallie Stewart’s story:  “I would not let a yellow dog be hanged on the testimony of Sallie,” said the judge.  “If a verdict should be returned against these men I should set it aside.  The jurors apparently saw things the same way as Judge Peebles.  It took them only five minutes of deliberation to reach an unanimous decision of acquittal.  Sam Kobre and the other two men were released immediately.  The judge also ordered the release of Sallie Stewart.

I can find no evidence that the murder of Henry Kobre was ever solved.  Most likely it was a case of robbery as Sam Kobre had first theorized.  Henry, known for keeping large amounts of cash on his person, likely had been killed for his money.  Smarting from the acquittal, however, the mayor of Winston-Salem revoked Max’s saloon permit.  Although the elder brother had kept a low profile during investigation, refusing to talk to the press, Max almost certainly had paid for Sam’s successful defense.  In the process he apparently angered local authorities bent on convictions.

In the midst of the tumult caused by Henry’s death and Sam’s arrest Max also was dealing with a crisis at home. In September 1906, his wife, Sadie, sustained serious injuries after being thrown from her buggy and dragged for some distance.  Her horse, usually reliable, had bolted and she was thrown out. Her clothing caught in the rigging and she was dragged a considerable distance on the pavement, resulting in serious cuts and bruises.  The newspaper commented: “Mrs. Kobre, while suffering considerable pain, is doing as well as could be expected.”  Her ultimate recovery is indicated by her living to age 83.

For the Kobres, the events effectively ended of their lives in Winston-Salem.  Sam, now married a second time, moved to Danville, Virginia, not far from the North Carolina line.  As the president of a shoe company, he and his wife, Ida, raised a family of three there.  Sam died in 1933, age 48, and is buried in Danville’s Aetz Chayim Cemetery.  Max moved to Baltimore where he headed a clothing manufacturing plant, assisted by his adult son, Ellis.  When Max died in 1952 at age 82, he was buried in Baltimore County’s Shaarei Tfiloh Cemetery.  Sadie joined him there 14 years later.  Their headstones are shown below.

I can find no indication that the person or persons who murdered Henry Kobre was ever caught and convicted.  Sallie Stewart, the young woman who had fingered Sam Kobre and the others, thereafter faded into the mists of history.  Immigrants Sam and Max Kobre had discovered that while the wheels of justice in their adopted country may grind imperfectly, they grind extremely fine.

Note:  This post relies principally on the newspaper stories that provided frequent, extensive reports about Henry Kobre’s murder and the search for the culprit(s).  While every whiskey container may not have a major story behind it, the jug that opens this post most surely supplies one.

 

Adair F. Bonney was a belle of Scituate, Massachusetts, a direct descendant of John Alden of the Mayflower, and by heritage a Daughter of the American Revolution.  Her name had graced a schooner owned by her wealthy merchant father.   When she met and married George Yenetschi, a first generation Greek American who ran a Boston liquor business, eyebrows must have lifted. Nevertheless, the marital bond held until Yenetchi’s death at age 75.

Shown here, George Varcelia Yenetchi was born in Charlestown, Massachusetts, in 1844, the son of Sophia Hutchinson and Constantine Yenetchi, a seaman in the U.S. Navy.  George was a young man of considerable ambition.  After graduating from the good local schools, he attended the Boston Commercial College (actually a secondary school) preparing for a career in business. Although his early occupations have gone unrecorded, by his mid-20s George had entered the liquor trade.

As a young bachelor working in Boston, George lodged in Young’s Hotel located on Court Street in the Financial District.  One of the first buildings in Boston to have electric lights, the hotel, shown here,  not only attracted celebrities like Mark Twain and Rutherford B. Hayes but as well the college sporting crowd, drawn by the smartly decorated billiards room. According to one observer: “Here one may see in the afternoon or evening the swellest students from Harvard in patent leather shoes exhibiting the very latest fashions in dress and toting canes like small trees knobbed with silver.” The young Greek looked and learned.

Meanwhile in Scituate, above, Adair Bonney was born in 1862, the daughter of Louisa Francis and Edward Hyde Bonney.  Through her mother Adair was a ninth descendant of John Alden, a member of the Mayflower crew who stayed in the colony and married Priscilla Mullins.  Their romance has been celebrated in American folklore and poetry. Adair also was the great granddaughter of Ruben Bates (1735-1835) who served with distinction in the Revolutionary War.  As a result she also was eligible for that exclusive auxiliary.

Her father, a leading merchant of Massachusetts, was a dealer in a wide variety of merchandise, including fresh fish, lobsters, wood, coal, hay and naval goods.  Shown here is an ad for his many commodities, claiming that Bonney maintained his own wharf.  He also had a fleet of fishing vessels.  Delighted with his only daughter, when she was ten years old Bonney named a newly commissioned 200 ton schooner after her.  Three years later, however, the ship met with disaster in a storm and the Adair F. Bonney went to the bottom of the Atlantic, never to be seen again.

The Bonney wealth allowed her family to give Adair a college education at the Massachusetts State Normal School in Bridgewater where she trained to be a teacher, graduating in 1878.  Records indicate that she taught for eleven years in local schools and likely was teaching when she met and married George Yenetchi..

How the couple met is unclear.  At age 46 George was firmly into bachelorhood when they married in March 1891, a ceremony conducted by a Unitarian minister.   Adair was 29, at that time a late age to marry for a woman as rich and prominent as she.  It suggests that having been well educated she had been careful in her choice of a mate.  The couple would have two sons, George V. Junior, and Ivan. 

 

With their marriage, George moved to Scituate into a household that included two servant girls, sisters from Ireland.  The dwelling was an easy walking distance to the train station, shown here.  It facilitated George’s daily commute to his Boston headquarters at 142 Blackstone Street to manage what had now become a prosperous and expanding liquor house.  

After two short stints working with partners, George struck out on his own. He was advertising as the successor to an earlier Boston liquor business dating from 1830.  Shown here from an 1882 Boston newspaper is his notice as a dealer in foreign and domestic wines and liquors at wholesale and retail.  In the small print, in a reference to his Greek heritage, George offered for one dollar a bottle of “Marou Cordial” as “a beverage used by the ladies of Greece at afternoon parties.”   The photo below shows George, left of the doorway with stick in hand, posing with employees in front of his establishment.

Yenetchi was selling his liquor in a variety of modes, including large stoneware jugs for wholesaling to customers operating Boston’s many saloons, hotels and restaurants.  He was receiving shipments of whiskey by the barrel, rectifying

(blending) them on the premises and marketing the results.  For retail customers George was providing mini jugs each with a swallow or two of whiskey to be given away to the favored.  He gave his flagship whiskey his middle name, “Varcelia.”

George continued to operate his liquor house successfully throughout the 1880s and 1890s, and well into the 20th Century, retiring after approximately 50 years in the Boston liquor trade.  A well-known local figure as he strolled around Scituate, even at 75 he seemed in good health.  In October 1919, however, George was suddenly stricken and died only a few hours later.  The cause was not revealed in his obituary. At his death he and Adair had been married some 30 years.

My efforts to find the burial places for this couple so far has been fruitless.  I have found the monument for George’s father, Constantine. Shown here, it stands in Woodlawn Cemetery, Everett, Massachusetts where George’s mother, Sophia, is also interred.  I am hopeful that a descendant will see this story and supply the information and, I hope, a photo of the graves of the debutante and the whiskey dealer, a husband and wife who seemingly made a success of their “odd couple” marriage.

Note:  This post was suggested by a mention on Robin Preston’s “pre-pro” website. Robin in turn credits the great-grandson of George Yenetchi for information and for providing the photo above of the liquor dealer outside his establishment.  

In the early 1900s, liquor dealers Samuel Harper and Cyrus Reynolds in the military town of Fort Smith, Arkansas, faced a financial dilemma.  What was to be done about the cutthroat competition from the proliferating saloons and cheap whiskey being shipped in from the East?  Deciding that cheating was their best option, they issued their own brand under completely false credentials and thereby triggered a landmark trademark suit.

Both born about 1863, the two men were experienced in the liquor trade, both pouring whiskey in a saloon and selling packaged goods.  Cyrus Reynolds had gotten his start as an employee of M.C. Wallace, a Fort Smith  liquor dealer who carried a number of national brands.  In time, Reynolds and a partner had bought out Wallace and continued operations.  When that partnership dissolved, Reynolds joined the existing saloon and liquor house of Sam Harper and his brother. He eventually was made a full partner of Harper-Reynolds Co., located at 503 Garrison Street, shown below.

The new company soon found itself in deep financial waters.  Although the owners could boast of being local agents for Miller Beer, they found themselves surrounded by dozens of other liquor outlets, some like Tom Taylor’s only steps away.  Noting the popularity of Mellwood whiskey on their shelves, a scheme began to form in the minds of the partners.  Why not provide an imitation that could sell for less and call it “Mill Wood”?

Meanwhile 670 miles northeast of Fort Smith in Louisville, Kentucky, George Washington Swearingen was basking in the success of his distillery, below,  and particularly the nationwide sales of his Mellwood brand.  As one observer said:  “Beginning on a small scale it became one of the largest and most successful institutions in the state.” Shown here, insurance documents record a distillery  built of brick and equipped with a fire-proof roof.  The property contained seven warehouse, one a “free (no federal regulation) that stood 70 feet southwest of the still and six “bottled in bond” warehouses, all within 300 feet of the still.

Although Swearingen offered a wide variety of brands, his flagship label and best seller was Mellwood.  A subject of vigorous marketing, the brand was promoted by frequent advertising in a wide range of national publications.  Sold at retail in quart bottles and pint flasks, the Mellwood label became a familiar sight on liquor shelves all over America.  Or as one publication stated: “…Being known far and wide as the equal of any in the market.”   Faced with an impostor whiskey being sold in Fort Smith, Swearingen vowed retribution and filed suit in Federal District Court in the Arkansas city.

He did so at a propitious time.  In the past trademarks has been loosely protected under state common law beginning in colonial times. Congress first attempted to establish a federal trademark regime in 1870, only to have the law struck down by the Supreme Court.  In 1881 Congress retaliated by passing a new act.  It was not, however, until 1905 when Congress revised and strengthened the Trademark Act that the laws had real “teeth.” 

The suit was heard in December 1908 in the federal courthouse in Fort Smith, shown here.  Testifying for the Fort Smith proprietors was Reynolds. He contended that the “Mill Wood” name was not chosen to mimic Mellwood but was named after his old home place in Indiana, a somewhat dubious claim.  Reynolds chose, however, not to rebut any of the other charges involved in falsifying his company’s liquor.  

The acusations included…:

 The word “WHISKEY” in block letters was similar to those used for Mellwood, followed by red script letters spelling “Mill Wood,” also similar to red lettering on the Mellwood bottle.   The word “Kentucky” was prominent and untrue.

The Mill Wood label featured a  picture of a large distillery, containing captions “Mill Wood Distilling Co.” “Malt House,” “Warehouse,”  “Cattle Pens.” In fact, Harper, Reynolds had no such facilities.  Their whiskey was being concocted in their Fort Smith quarters from supplies distilled elsewhere and brought in by rail.  The distillery picture was purely an artist’s invention.

The faux distillery view was followed by the designation “hand made,”  “sour mash, and the following text:  “The celebrated whiskey is made exclusively by the sour mash copper process, employed only in the distillation of the finest whiskeys, from carefully selected grains, and bottled only after  being matured in barrels for  years.”  None of this was true.

Reynolds made no effort to refute any of Swearingen’s allegations.  Instead, while admitting he and Harper had approved the label, he seemed to cast the blame on the lithographic company for having designed and printed it.  Reynolds said the company had been sent 5,500 labels, that it had used 3,400 of them on quart, pint and half-pint bottles, and that the remaining 2,100 labels had been destroyed when Mellwood Distilling brought the lawsuit. 

The Federal District Court asked:  “What are the facts?” and proceeded to provide the answer in a single sentence:  “There was no such distillery;  the whiskey was put up and owned by defendants at Ft. Smith Ark., and was a blend and certainly a cheap whiskey; it was not put up by any fire copper process; it was not made in Kentucky; it was not celebrated; it was not made of selected grain; it was not matured eight years in barrels before being bottled; it was not [just] distributed by the Harper-Reynolds Liquor Company; it was both owned and sold by that company; it was not sour mash; it was not hand made; the picture on the label of the distillery was not the picture of any distillery; the descriptions on the picture were untrue.”

The Court then granted an injunction to the Mellwood plaintiffs, restraining Harper and Reynolds from use of the label, and referring the case to a master to determine the ill-gotten profits, assess damages and set court costs.  Although the decision was reached early in December 1908, the verdict was delayed on a technicality by the defendants’ lawyers until late January, 1909.

My presumption is that back in Fort Smith, although Harper and Reynolds continued to sell Mellwood whiskey for $1.25 a quart, their erstwhile Mill Wood brand, at 75 cents a quart, was a thing of the past.  The partners did not have long to continue in the liquor business.  Things were changing rapidly in Fort Smith as the population was shifting away from the original boisterous military base town to a more sedate environment.  In August 1914, Fort Smith was voted “dry” and all saloons and liquor houses ordered to shut down. That order was followed on January 1, 1916, when the entire state of Arkansas embraced prohibition.  

After being shut down by the “dry” sentiments sweeping the country, Harper and Reynolds went their separate ways.  Harper became the vice president of a Fort Smith clothing manufacturer, Flyer Garment Company.  Also as a vice president, Reynolds joined a wholesale grocery firm, owned by a relative, called Reynolds-Davis.

Sam Harper was the first to die at the age of 69, in 1932 committing suicide by carbon monoxide while sitting in a running automobile in his garage. Cyrus Reynolds died in 1946, age 82, of natural causes and was buried in Forth Smith’s Oak Cemetery.  The grave markers of both men are shown below.

Addendum:  A 1920 study from Columbia University called “A Psychological Study of Trade-Mark Infringement” highlighted the inconsistency among approximately forty trademark legal decisions the researchers examined. They found that among control groups the likelihood of consumers mistaking “Mill Wood” for “Mellwood” was at the low end of probability.

Note:  The Mellwood/Mill Wood trademark case in many ways was a landmark decision.  Earlier whiskey cases tried in the home city of a defendant usually were followed by acquittals.  In this case the federal judges in the Arkansas city came down hard on locals Harper and Reynolds. For those interested in such legal issues, I highly recommend the book “Bourbon Justice:  How Whiskey Law Shaped America” by Brian Haara.  Although this post was written from original court documents, Atty. Haara’s informative book initially alerted me to the Fort Smith story.

 

 

My post of January 17, 2023  featured examples of American whiskey distillers and dealers using the 1897 “Bottled-in-Bond” Act as an excuse to claim that the U.S. Government was behind the quality of their liquor.  Frequently they resorted to images of Uncle Sam pitching their product to get the message across.  In subsequent days I have been able to collect additional images of the gallant old gentleman selling whiskey. 

The Act required that the whiskey was (and still is) produced according to a set of Federal guidelines. The distiller sealed his whiskey in bonded warehouses and marketed the aged product under proprietary names that came with a guarantee of integrity (not quality) from the United States Government.  The federal OK is symbolized by sealing the whiskey with a green strip stamp on each bottle. In exchange for meeting requirements, distillers do not pay taxes on their whiskey until it is bottled and removed from the warehouse for sale.  Treasury agents are assigned to monitor the warehouses to insure requirements are met.  When the law was new, canny whiskey men saw great advantage in using Uncle Sam in their advertising.

Among them was Asher Guckenheimer.  He founded his Pittsburgh distillery in 1857.  His liquor became a leading national brand after winning top prize at the 1893 Colombian Exposition in Chicago.  Following his death family members carried on the business for several years.  Guckenheimer, possibly more than any of his competitors, used Uncle Sam in a wide variety of ads, many in black and white for newspaper use.  Here, however, he is represented by a color ad that depicts Sam “standing behind” a large bottle of “Good Old Guckenheimer.”

Old Beechwood was a brand from the Vogt-Applegate Co. of Louisville.  Col. C. L. Applegate first forges onto the scene in 1876 when he and a brother, Edward, purchased land in the small town of Yelvington, Daviess County, Kentucky.  The brothers planned a new facility for blending, bottling and wholesaling whiskey.   With financing from Henry Vogt of the Vogt Machine Company in Louisville, the Vogt-Applegate Co. was founded and began operation.  The Colonel was a vice president and the company pitchman.  The Louisville offices were located at 236 Fourth Street but eventually moved onto Whiskey Row at 102-104 E. Main Street.   As Vogt-Applegate met with success, the company opened branches in Kansas City and Chattanooga.  “Old Beechwood” was the company’s  flagship label, advertised widely both regionally and nationally.  In this ad, Uncle Sam is pointing out the green stamp that identifies the whiskey as bottled in bond.

Applegate’s fellow Louisville whiskey man,  Jesse Moore, appropriated Uncle Sam for a poster advertising a whiskey that bore Jesse’s name.  He shows the old gentleman flying over the earth on a whiskey barrel, trailed by an American.  flag. The ad claimed that Jesse Moore’s whiskey was the purest and best on the market.  This company was founded immediately after the Civil War in 1866 by Moore and continued by his son, George H. Moore.  The latter formed a partnership with a Pennsylvania man,  Henry Browne Hunt.   The brand became popular throughout the West and eventually claimed outlets in twelve major American cities. The whiskey was being supplied by the Fern Cliff Distillery of Louisville.

The American flag frequently figures prominently in these ads.  For example, Samuel Worman began a wholesale liquor business in Philadelphia with a partner named Fluck about 1872.  Two years later Fluck was gone and Worman’s name alone was on the company letterhead.  The firm was located sequentially at two addresses on the city’s North Second Street. “Golden Drop” was the firm’s flagship brand. The Worman Co. disappeared from Philadelphia business directories after 1912.

Part of a prominent West Coast whiskey family,  John F. Cutter founded a whiskey company in San Francisco about 1870, as claimed in the ad.  He later sold the brand to Edward M. Martin, an Irish immigrant.  After Cutter’s death in 1880, the company appears to have continued to market J.F. Cutter Rye as well as other brands.   This ad shows a tiny Uncle Sam, apparently standing on a table, recommending Cutter products.  A glass and a burning cigar suggest a second party is in the room.

One whiskey outfit not only appropriated him as its pitchman, but actually named its products as “Uncle Sam Brand Whiskey and Brandy.”  The image below is a letterhead showing Sam sitting with a jug of whiskey from the U.S. Distilling Company of Crouse a tiny village in North Carolina.  My research yielded minimal information about this company.

In 1893  George Gambrill of Baltimore registered Roxbury Rye as a brand with the government, with a distillery in Roxbury, Maryland,  a village in Washington County  about twenty-three miles from Baltimore.  Despite being located in Maryland, he incorporated the company in West Virginia, probably to avoid taxes.  An energetic salesman, Gambrill built Roxbury Rye into a nationally recognized brand in relatively few years.  The distiller, however, had problems keeping on the right  side of the law.  Speculating on wheat futures, he sustained financial losses that authorities thought added up to out and out fraud.  As a result Gambrill was hauled into court in 1910, accused of putting up the same whiskey as collateral for separate, forfeited loans totaling a half million dollars. He was tried, found guilty, and sentenced to four years in prison.  His Roxbury distillery was shut down and George exited the liquor business but wiggled out of serving any time in prison.  Viewed in context Gambrill’s reference to Uncle Sam seems particularly brazened.

I.W. Harper, a brand that is still available on shelves today, was from the Bernheim brothers, Bernard and Isaac.  They arrived in the United States from Germany with pennies in their pockets and found a friendly welcome with the Uri whiskey family of Paducah, Kentucky.  Finding Paducah too constraining, the pair decamped to Louisville in 1888 and ultimately became the most successful and prosperous distillers in Kentucky.  The Bernheim’s Uncle Sam is clearly in a party mood, holding aloft a cocktail glass full of booze while a comely lady friend joins in the toast.

This coupling of the old gentleman with a female ushers in an ad that make use of national symbols, in effect doubling the dose of patriotism being implied.  The lady is the “Spirit of Freedom,” known by her floppy hat and flowing gown.  Her statue stands atop the dome of the U.S. Capitol building.  Here she is assisting Sam hold up a banner for two Fleischmann brands against a back drop of American flags. The Fleischmann Company, headquartered in Cincinnati, was an offshoot of the famous yeast manufacturers.  Another name that survived Prohibition, Fleischmann today is known chiefly for its gin.

Our last Uncle Sam is of contemporary origins.  It is an imaginative takeoff of the famous World Two poster which showed the same pointing figure and bore the motto “Uncle Sam Wants You.”  The original was meant to spur enlistment’s during the Second World War. This sign, by contrast, urges us to head for a cocktail lounge.   Wild Turkey is a premium brand of bourbon made in Lawrenceburg, Kentucky.

Note:  Longer posts on six of the “whiskey men” featured here may be found elsewhere on this website:  Guckenheimer, April 15, 2012; Vogt-Applegate, June 21, 2012; Jesse Moore, February 6, 2018;  Gambrill, January 6, 2011; Bernheim, December 10, 2014, and Fleischmann, March 29, 2012.