Friday, March 29, 2013

Anson Hotaling of San Fran: God, Whiskey and Fire


 The earthquake and subsequently burning of San Francisco in 1906 was greeted by a good many clergymen as divine retribution for the city’s wicked, wicked ways. The fact that houses of worship were incinerated right along with everything else — while a huge whiskey warehouse was spared — inspired this immediate verse by local poet and wit Charles Kellogg Field:

'If, as they say, God spanked the town
For being over frisky,
Why did He burn the churches down
And save Hotaling's whiskey?'"

The ironies might have been even stronger had Field, the clergymen and his fellow San Franciscans been more aware of Anson P. Hotaling’s religious views.  His middle initial stood for “Parsons” but he was far from being a traditional in his theological ideas.  That story comes later.  First the context:

Hotaling, shown here in maturity,  was born in 1828 in New Baltimore, a town in Green County, New York.  He was of Knickerbocker Dutch stock on his father’s side.  His mother was a  “Parsons,”  and an immigrant from England.  Anson attended local schools but left during his teen years to work on his father’s farm but soon found other pursuits more attractive.  After clerking briefly in a country store, at about age 20, he discovered photography, a pursuit that was still in its infancy.  Buying good equipment, he traveled throughout New York State taking portraits with as a biographer says “much pecuniary and professional success.”


Soon that occupation began to pale and in 1852, age 24, Hotaling sailed from New York to California in the ship “Racehound,” along with other men joining the Gold Rush.  Enroute the ship was forced to dock for an extended period at Valparaiso, Chile, for repairs and refitting.   Hotaling enjoyed the Latin lifestyle and determined to stay.  Just before the ship sailed again, he changed his mind and went along to join the thousands hoping to “get rich quick” in the California placer mines.  Moiling for gold did not suit him long and he went back to clerking,  this time in a San Francisco liquor store owned by W.J. Griffin, located at the corner of Sansome and Jackson Streets. There Hotaling found his true calling.

Working for Griffin for several years and amassing a substantial amount of capital, in 1865 the youth bought out his employer and opened his own wholesale liquor business under the name “A.P. Hotaling & Co.”   About the same period Anson also  found time to marry.  His  bride was Lavinia Linen, the daughter of James Linen, a well known San Francisco writer and poet.  She was sixteen years Hotaling’s junior.  They would have four sons.

Hotaling remained at the Sansome and Jackson address for eight years and then, needing larger quarters,  he moved to 429-439 Jackson, where the firm remained for the rest of its business life.  A company sign shows his complex of buildings straddling a major street.  The one on the left was his sales office; on the right his warehouse.   By 1880 he was the largest liquor wholesaler in San Francisco  with a sales volume of 1,750 barrels annually.



With his San Francisco success,  Hotaling opened offices in other major West Coast cities. Directories indicate that he maintained a retail outlet in Seattle, Washington, on Commercial Street from 1889 to 1893, and in Portland, Oregon, from 1875 to 1887, at addresses on Front and subsequently North First Streets.   An embossed bottle from Portland that held “J. H. Cutter Whiskey” is shown here.  Cutter was Hotaling’s flagship brand for many years, vigorously advertised through newspaper ads and bar signs.  The sign shown here is an unusual three dimensional display. 

In 1903 the A.P. Hotaling Company sold the rights to the Cutter name to Sherwood and Sherwood.   After that the company’s principal brand became “Old Kirk.”  It was a proprietary brand, trademarked with the government in 1906.  Over the years Hotaling’s firm also featured other labels, including “Hotalings Special Reserve,” “O.P.S. Bourbon,”  “St. George,”  “OK A No. 1 Old Bourbon,” and the interestingly named, “Death to Imitators.”

Old Kirk was vigorously marketed.  The company provided bar signs that could be as topical as the Great White Fleet. shown below.  That was the popular nickname for the United States Navy battle group that completed a circumnavigation of the globe from December 1907 to February 1909 by order of U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt.  Another sign advertising “Old Kirk” was in medieval-looking stained glass.   A. P. Hotaling & Co. also provided a number of giveaways to favored customers, including back of the bar bottles and, to retail customers,  medallions that might be used as watch fobs or good luck charms.


Hotaling himself became a well known figure in San Francisco, an active member of both the Old Fellows and Masonic organizations.  His write-up covered more than two full pages of an 1881 book entitled “Contemporary Biographies of California’s Representative Men.”  That author, without mentioning specific names, affirmed that Hotaling was active in several  benevolent organizations and also supported leading literary and art associations of San Francisco.

The biographer also devoted considerable time to Anson’s religious beliefs, stating:  “Contact with the world, and especially the world of California, in Mr. Hotalings case, as in that of many others, has lead to extreme latitudinarianism....”  That term, meaning no taste for organized religion, was not going to endear this whiskey man to local clergy.  The writer had more to say about Hotaling’s theology:  “He believes that religion is a life,not a creed; that only a soul at liberty can be a liberal soul;  that stiff zeal and uncompassionate rigor do not constitute genuine piety;  that the religion most needed is that which takes hold on the daily life about us, and promotes just dealing between man and man.”  All the more for folks later to wonder why the churches burned and Hotaling’s whiskey was spared. 

Moreover, virtually every other major stock of whiskey in San Francisco had been destroyed.  Hotalings' salvation may have been by the grace of God, but there also were more earthbound causes.   According to accounts, the warehouse was threatened and saved three times:  First by a fireman who hacked off smoldering roof cornices.  Second by a single length of hose from a Navy fireboat in San Francisco Bay that firefighters dragged over the ridge of Telegraph Hill for over a mile and eleven blocks to the Jackson street site. The final salvation was a bucket brigade, many of the participants Hotaling's workers, who slopped a compote of sewage and sea water on the structure from an adjacent site.   The mixture steamed and stunk as it hit the hot exterior but as one writer reported, “the muck did the trick.”  Moreover, while other liquor dealers in the city suffered from looting,  authorities allowed the Hotalings to hire a hundred men to stand guard. The firm lost nothing.


Unfortunately Anson Hotaling was not around to witness this excitement.  He died in 1899, much mourned by his widow, Lavinia, and four sons.   Hotaling had been bringing his boys into the firm as they matured.  Son Richard Hotaling, assisted by his brother Fred, was able to take over the business and appears to have run it with the same skill as his father.  The business continued to prosper at its Jackson Street address until shut down by National Prohibition in 1919.  Subsequently a bronze tablet with Field’s verse on it was attached to the Hotaling warehouse where it can still be found.  In addition, nearby Jones Alley was later renamed Hotaling Way.   Anson, the “latitudinarian” on whom Heaven smiled, may be gone but not forgotten in San Francisco.



Note:  The images of Hotaling signs are from the website and collection of Michael Dolcini, whose untimely death at an early age has been reported.  Much of the material on Anson Hotaling, including his religious views, are from “Contemporary Biographies of California’s Representative Men,” published in 1881, principal author Hubert H. Bancroft.













28 comments:

  1. I'm looking for information on what Hotaling actually produced. DO you know of any sources? Things like: did they actually distill or just blend and bottle? Which whiskies did they souurce and from where? Were they all American styles or did they deal in any Irish or Scotch? Any other spirits? I won the second oldest saloon in town (Elixir) and I have an old pumpkin seed bottle of blended whiskey made for the owner of the bar sometime between 1893 and 1933. I'd like to know what might have been in that blend and who might have made it for him.

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  2. Let me respond to your questions one by one:

    1. There is no evidence Hotaling was a distiller himself. He most likely was a "rectifier," taking whiskey made elsewhere, blending and compounding it, and selling it under his own label.

    I will try to respond to your questions one by one:

    1. There is no evidence that Hotaling was a distiller. He almost certainly was a "rectifier," blending and compounding whiskeys to achieve a certain taste, bottling the product and selling it.

    2. To my knowledge no US distillers were making Irish or Scotch, tho some was being sent over in bulk and bottled here by wholesalers, but largely an East Coast thing. Hotalings almost certainly were American styles of rye, corn and wheat whiskeys. Some in KY were called bourbon, a wheat whiskey.

    3. Your pumpkin seed bottle most likely was from 1893 to 1920, not 1933, unless it has a spider web embossing. As for who made it, it might have come from the Elixir saloonkeeper himself, mixed up in a back room. Without any other identification (something embossed on the bottle, a name etc.) it would be almost impossible to know where the whiskey came from -- certainly not necessarily from SF or California.

    Hope this is helpful. Sorry I cannot be more definitive. Jack

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  3. Great post, thanks!

    A.P. Hotaling is my 4-greats grandfather. A few things:

    His wife's name was Lavinia, not Lorena. Anson, Jr., their son, died in 1898, a year before his father, probably of alcoholism.

    St. George whisky was named after the St. George Hotel in Santa Cruz, which A.P. built after his business building there burned down in the fire of 1894. The St. George was the first building in Santa Cruz to have an elevator.

    Hotaling's Seattle building still stands at 209 First Ave, where it currently houses a German beer joint. It mist likely replaced a Seattle building he had that burned in the "paint pot" fire of 1889 (His loss was approx $50K but he was insured for some of it).

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    1. After A.P.'s death, his sons Richard and Fred (Mostly Richard, who was an SF Supervisor in 1901, and a Bohemian Club member like his father) ran the business.

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    2. My Grandparents stayed at the St George Hotel in Santa Cruz on their honeymoon in 1902.

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    3. I bought Richard Hotaling's gold mine. The Montezuma Mines, Nelson Nevada. He patented it in 1914.Probably had it mined until 1919. He bought it from Herman Wesselhoft in 1907

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    4. Thanks to Jean, Ubain and Anonymous for this interesting additional information on A.P. Hotaling.

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    5. This is all fascinating to me. My mom, J. Hotaling, great grandfather was Andrew G. Hotaling, Anson's brother. Mom was born in SF in 1928. I grew up on Hotaling stories, including hearing "the poem" at just about every family gathering. My aunt has the family photo album from the 1800's which contains all the Hotalings's portraits, including AP. All is posted on my Ancestry. Thanks for this. -Dan

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  4. Thank you, Abigail, for your corrections and the additional material you provided for the post. I have always though Hotaling to be one of the most interesting whiskey men profiled here. I will be making the necessary adjustments in the post.

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  5. I am wondering about the forest Service campground named Hotelling in the old gold mining area along the south fork of the Salmon River, within Klamath National Forest. It's easy to assume the name origin is the same.

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    1. Hotelling Ridge which is about 2 miles south of the campground is thought to have been named for an early forest supervisor. The name as well as Anson's Hotaling & Houghteling and others all come from the same family around Coxsackie on the Hudson River in New York State.

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  6. When did Richard Hoteling die, 1925, 1926? He owned the Montezuma Mines in Nelson Nevada

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  7. Ubain: I have no information on Richard Hoteling's death and burial. Suggest you check Ancestry.com to see if the information is there.

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  8. A.P. Hotaling Jr. did not die of alcoholism and the year was 1899. The following year, 1900, A.P. Sr. died heart broken from the loss of his son, and 2nd child he buried. I am A.P. Sr.'s great, great, great grandson. Also, A.P. Sr. was not a member of the bohemian club, Richard was the 1st member in the family I believe. Would love to connect with anonymous!

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  9. And of course.. Great article Mr. Jack Sullivan!

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  10. Hotaling Descendant: Thanks for your kind comments and additional information on Anson Hotaling and his family. Hotaling's philosophy of life marks him as someone above the normal cut of humanity.

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  11. My name is David hotaling I am the great grandson. Of Henry hotaling Which was Anson brother My grandfather told us stories. On how he would come from, California? To take them to dinner

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  12. Unknown: Thanks for your contribution to the Hotaling story.

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  13. Is there a plaque somewhere on Jackson Square that has the poem on it? I like to explore the City once a week but have never found the inscription.

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    1. There is a plaque on the building with that inscription. You can email me at tom.hotaling@gtxins.com and I will send you the picture. Tom

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  14. Unknown: Good question. I have no idea where the poem may have been reproduced. Apparently there is a plaque on the side of Hotaling's old warehouse but whether or not it has the verse, I do not know.

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  15. Hello I came upon an Old Kirk medallion like the one showing in your post, while metal detecting on the beach in Santa Cruz. Any idea where I should go to have it appraised? Or if is is of any value?

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  16. Anon: Thanks for being in touch. The medallion would have more value to West Coast collectors. My advice: Find a local bottle show in your area and take it there. Most will have a value assessing table. If not, find a dealer there in such memorabilia to get an idea of value.

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  17. Hi Jack Thank you for your prompt response! Thank you also for the history of Old Kirk whiskey and the family and business history. So very interesting 😁

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  18. One last question- by bottle show do you mean antique bottles?

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  19. Yes. Your medallion by the way is over 100 years old and thus by definition an antique. Glad you found the article on Hotaling of interest. It was fun to do.

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  20. Hey Jack! Having a certain fascination with Anchor, I stumbled into the Hotaling story and wrote a song about its survival of the fire. Happy to send you the lyrics if you're interested: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zy67wCntuaE

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  21. Sean: I have heard the song on UTube and it is terrific. As I am of Irish persuasion myself I am partial to the sound. Send me the lyrics. Giving you full credit I will try to find some way to incorporate them into a future post. Most appreciate your being in touch. My email is jack.sullivan9@verizon.net.

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