The Mouls: The Liquor Dynasty That Almost Wasn’t

Three generations of the Moul family were prominent in the sale of whiskey to the townsfolk of York, Pennsylvania, over a period of almost seventy years (1851-1919)— an amazing record in the liquor trade where a twenty-year run is notable.  But the Moul dynasty was in true peril for three days in June, 1863, when the town was occupied by the Confederate Army and threatened with destruction.

First, something about the Mouls.  The origin of the name variously is given as Scottish, English, Irish, German, French and Dutch.  Not in question is where Moul families located upon coming to America, the vast majority settling in Pennsylvania as farmers.  A section of Heidelberg Township in York County was known as “Moulstown” and there, appropriately enough, Charles Moul was born in the summer of 1814 to Conrad and Anna Maria (Hair) Moul.

Farm life apparently had little appeal for Charles and he gravitated toward York, then one of the hundred largest cities in the nation.  My guess is that he began by working in a local grocery store, saved his money, and planned some day to strike out on his own.  He may have been spurred on by his marriage in January 1844 at Christ Lutheran Church in York to Susannah (“Susan”) Stambaugh. About 1851, Moul took the step and opened his own grocery on South Duke Street, a store that specialized heavily in selling liquor.

Prospering as a merchant, in 1859 Charles moved his grocery and liquor business into a brand new four-story building at 112-114 South George Street.  These facilities allowed him to stock large quantities of spirits for wholesaling to local saloons and restaurants.   The space also allowed him to buy whiskey by the barrel from Pennsylvania distilleries and decant it into his own jugs and bottles labeled with his name.  He featured a proprietary brand he called “Violet Springs 1851.”  Life at mid-century seemed good to Charles Moul — but things were about to change.

In late June 1863 General Jubal Anderson Early, a fiery Confederate commander marched into the heart of York County with 6,600 battle-hardened troops.  They burned railroad bridges and turntables, took down telegraph wires, confiscated more than 400 horses and dozens of mules from angry farmers, and seized control of major roads.  Then they occupied York.  An artist’s rendering here shows rebel troops tearing down the American flag in the town’s Miller’s Square.

Even more distressing was Early’s threat to townsfolk:  Come up with $100,000 in tribute to the Confederacy or face the burning of York — the equivalent of asking for $2.5 million today.  Moul’s building with its stock of whiskey was in serious jeopardy of being torched.  Meeting Early’s demands was impossible but local leaders went from door to door to try to collect as much as they could.  Although there is no list of who gave what, we can believe that Moul with so much at stake was among the larger contributors.  In the end, only $28,610 of Early’s demand could be raised and turned over.  By that time, however, Lee had ordered the general and his troops to the fateful battleground at Gettysburg.  As the troops marched out of town, I imagine there was a collective sigh of relief.

The crisis over, Charles Moul continued to prosper, phasing out of groceries into fully pursuing the more lucrative liquor trade.  In time he was joined by his son,  Edwin T. Moul, born in York in 1849.  Beginning as a clerk, the son learned all facets of the business and demonstrated many of the entrepreneurial qualities that characterized his father.  As he aged, Charles increasingly turned management over to Edwin.  The elder Moul died in 1884 at the age of 73 and was buried in Prospect Hill Cemetery in York.

Edwin lost no time in putting his own stamp on the enterprise.  He changed the name to the “Edwin T. Moul, Wines and Liquors.”  That name adorns ceramic jugs, none of which appears to bear a pottery mark.  The assumption of local bottle collectors is that these containers were made by either the Pfaltzgraff Stoneware Co. or the The Pfaltzgraff Pottery Co., both located in York County.  Shown here, the jugs ranged from two gallons down to quart size.

Although Edwin Moul was faced with the financial panics of the late 1800s, growing anti-alcohol sentiment, and several attempts to impose monopolies or “trusts” on the whiskey business that often made it difficult to get supplies, he continued on the track of prosperity that his father had blazed.  After 23 years of guiding the fortunes of the South George Street establishment,  Edwin died at the age of 58 and was buried at Prospect Hill, not far from his parents.

By this time a third scion in the family line was primed to take over.  He was Charles D. Moul, born in September 1878 at York to Edwin and his wife Addie.  Edwin early on had introduced his son into the liquor trade.  Just as his father had done, Charles took the opportunity to change the firm name to his own.  The South George St. company became “Charles D. Moul, Wholesale Wines and Liquors.”

A postcard from about 1908 shows a well-established York that was undergoing a modest economic boom. As a wholesaler, Charles D. faced a new set of challenges, forced to advertise and vie vigorously for the business of the burgeoning number of saloons and restaurants in the city and surrounding areas.  

A key business strategy for wholesalers was providing customers with gifts that contained advertising.  In Charles’ case the giveaways included a shot glass advertising Virginia Spring Whiskey, and a corkscrew touting Moul’s Rye.   My favorite, shown right, is a small jug that sported a bail handle and containing a few swallows of liquor.  With such vigorous marketing, this third in the line of Mouls was able to continue the thriving business his grandfather had begun in 1851.

National Prohibition, however, posed a threat that even General Early could not match.  Faced with the passage of the Volstead Act that mandated the end of all alcohol sales nationwide, Charles D. was forced to shut the doors on the Moul whiskey dynasty.  He was 42 years old and had been running the business for twelve years.   Still relatively young and with cash to invest,  he entered the new and expanding auto supply market, opening a business in the early 1920s called The Community Tire Shop.

This may have been a relatively short-lived enterprise. According to the 1930 census Charles D., living in York with his wife, Linda, and two adult sons, had no occupation.  Although he lived to see Prohibition repealed,  no evidence exists that he or his sons returned to the liquor trade.  He died in 1939, age 61, and is buried with other family members in Prospect Hill Cemetery.

Any liquor house that could count a life span more than a generation would have had its share of history-driven vicissitudes.  Few if any, however, faced the destructive challenge that Jubal Early posed in June 1863.  Having survived that crisis, the Mouls thrived for three generations and 68 continuous years in business — a remarkable accomplishment.  As a symbol of their success,  the Moul Building, shown here, still stands in downtown York.

Addendum:  A 2021 book on the Jubal Early raid into York County contains a list of those to contributed to the "ransom" fund.  None of the Mouls is listed as contributing.  The book provides details of the Civil War incident.  It is called "The Dogs of War in Our Midst:  Civil War Perspectives from York County," by James McClure and Scott Mingus.  At under $15.00 from Amazon for a large format, illustrated, 200 pages, the book is a real bargain -- and recommended.

Wheeling and Dealing with the Stolls in Kentucky

 

From their base in Lexington, members of the Stoll family at various times owned part or all of five Kentucky distilleries, bought and sold such plants frequently, and played cozy with the Whiskey Trust.  Their gambits in the liquor trade did not bring them lasting fame but in their own time earned them grudging respect as canny businessmen.

The Stoll family was established in the United States as early as 1818 when Gallus Stoll, a native of Wurtemburg, Germany, brought his family here.  After a brief flirtation with Pennsylvania, Gallus headed west, settling in Lexington.  There his son, George, was educated, found a wife in a Kentucky native, Mary Scrugham, began a family, and sold furniture and later insurance.

From that union emerged a band of brothers whose names would be among the most noted in distilling circles of the time.  The eldest, born in 1851, was Richard Pindall Stoll, shown right, whose jutting chin and stern demeanor give some hint of his determination to succeed.  Educated in public schools and at the University of Kentucky, he first learned the liquor business as a federal revenue agent, collecting taxes on distilled products.  In time his brother, James Scrugham Stoll, born in 1855, would join him in the whiskey trade.

In 1880 the brothers, operating as Stoll & Co., established their first distillery, one they called “Commonwealth.”  Known in Federal parlance as Registered Distillery #12 in Kentucky’s 7th District, the whiskey-making was accomplished within the brick shell of a old cotton warehouse.  This distillery was capable of producing 45 barrels a day or 5,000 barrels per year, made possible by twelve 9,000 gallon fermentation vats in the cellar.  Three small warehouses could accommodate 13,000 barrels of aging stock.

After five years Stoll & Co., in a likely shrewd business move, dissolved and its assets were auctioned publicly.  A third brother, George J. Stoll, bought the distillery and Richard Stoll acquired several hundred gallons of the stored and aging whiskey.  Out of this transaction the Commonwealth Distillery Co. was born, incorporated in 1883.  Richard became president and his board included James and a fourth brother, Charles H. Stoll.   Members of a Cincinnati liquor wholesaling family, the Pritzes, also came on board. [See my post on Pritz, October 2011.]

Meanwhile a second firm was formed by Richard Stoll with a partner, Robert B. Hamilton, to merchandise the products from the Commonwealth plant.  To a great extent using large ceramic jugs for their wholesale customers, they sold under their own names and “Old Elk.”  Their symbol for the latter was a large elk head peering from a horseshoe and bearing the motto, “Always Pure.”

Meanwhile Richard also was becoming involved with William Tarr in the Ashland Distillery (RD #1, 7th District), the facility shown below, located in Fayette County.  In a series of business moves this distillery had come into the possession of Tarr, a prominent Kentucky land speculator [See my post on Tarr, February 2015.]  In time James Stoll, shown right, also became a major partner.  The Ashland distillery issued $50,000 in bonds secured by company assets.  The aftereffects of a financial panic and depression in the whiskey industry, as well as some bad personal loans by Tarr, however, soon caused the company to go into bankruptcy.

In May 1897 all Ashland Distillery assets were assigned to James and Richard Stoll, as receivers.  The major asset was 10,000 bottles of  “Old Tarr" whiskey in bond.  Two years later the distillery was sold at auction for $61,000 to a “straw bidder” for the Kentucky Distillery & Warehouse Company, better known as the “Whiskey Trust.”  The cartel was now a major force in Kentucky distilling and Charles H. Stoll was its attorney who engineered the deal.

Meanwhile the brothers continued to be busy on other fronts.  In 1891 James Stoll, shown here, teamed with Sanford K. Vannatta, a whiskey broker from Bloomington, Illinois, in a effort to make “Old Elk” a recognized brand across America.  As the Stolls' relationship with the Trust ripened they deeded the Commonwealth Distillery to the Trust and it promptly expanded production.  James Stoll eventually severed the relationship with Vannatta but continued to wholesale Commonwealth whiskey under the name “Stoll & Company.”  James’ son, George J. Stoll III, was made a vice president of this entity.

Returning the several favors the Stolls had bestowed on it, the Trust reciprocated in 1902 by ceding the family the Bond & Lilliard Distillery (RD #274, 8th District), located in Anderson County, on Bailey’ Run near the town of Lawrenceburg Courthouse.  In March 1905, once more with Trust assistance, the Stolls acquired the Belle of Nelson (RD #271, 5th District) and the E. L. Miles (RD #146, 5th District) distilleries both located in New Hope.  With these acquisitions the Stolls now were running the largest whiskey-making operation in Kentucky.

  

In addition to Old Elk the Stolls controlled a number of whiskey brands including “Bond & Lilliard,”  “Old Buckhorn Rye,”  “The Acme,” and “Belle of Nelson.”  For the last label the Stolls issued a series of saloon signs that depicted Western card-playing scenes.  My favorite is one in which a cowboy is reaching for his gun against a gambler while a Union soldier sits nearby in a drunken stupor.

In March 1903 as the Stolls were at the apogee of their power in Kentucky distilling, Richard died at his residence, only 52 years old.  Several months earlier a local newspaper had commented on his vigor and youthful appearance. The cause of death given was a sudden heart attack. He was buried in the Lexington Cemetery.   Through his lifetime Richard Stoll had been prominent not only in business but in the civic and political affairs of his community and state.  He was elected to represent Fayette County in the Kentucky legislature twice and  had run unsuccessfully on the Republican ticket for state treasurer and the U.S. Congress.

In 1907 the Stoll liquor empire underwent a further change as distillery operations were merged with the whiskey marketing arm.  This new unified corporation featured James S. Stoll as the president and George J. Stoll III and Richard’s son, John G. Stoll, as vice presidents.  Suggesting the Stolls continued relationship with the Whiskey Trust, the cartel’s man, Samuel Stofer, was secretary and treasurer.   That arrangement was in place only one year when James Stoll died in May, 1908, during a visit to Oxford, Ohio.  He was 53 years old.  He too was buried in Lexington Cemetery where the gravestones of the brothers lie not far apart.

With James’ death the liquor empire rapidly came to an end.  The days of Stoll wheeling and dealing in Kentucky whiskey were over.  Family distilling interests were ceded in their entirety to the Trust, that already had controlled much of the Stolls’ output.  At that point the Ashland Distillery, one that had helped launch the family into state prominence, was razed.  The family, however, continued to be involved importantly in Lexington.  Richard P.’s son, Richard C. Stoll, became an attorney and was a leader in local business, including guiding family ownership of the city’s transit system.  He also was a power in Republican party circles.

Joshua Low Was The Whiskey Man As Inventor

    
There is an old adage that “necessity is the mother of invention.”  My thought, rather, is that Ohio is the mother of invention.  Thomas Edison and the Wright Brothers come particularly to mind, but during the early 1900s the Buckeye state teemed with individuals bent on making improvements to all manner of things.  Among them was Joshua Low who sold liquor in Steubenville to make a living but whose lifelong passion was inventing.

It appears that Low’s first invention was a “thill coupling,” that he patented in 1873 when he was 28 years old.   For those like me not familiar with the term, a thill is one of two long shafts, usually of wood, between which a horse is hitched.  The coupling is important because it should be fastened easily, hold steady as the buggy or cart is being drawn along, and then be released with similar ease.  The figure below shows a horse with a thill secured with a coupling.

Born in 1845 in the town of Paris, Washington County, Pennsylvania,  Low had migrated the short ten miles over the Ohio River to Steubenville as a young man.  He dated the founding of his wholesale liquor house to 1865, a time when he was only 20, a dubious claim that suggests that he had bought an existing business, perhaps after working there for a time.  The 1870 census recorded him working as a “clerk” not an owner.  By the 1889 census, however, his occupation was “liquor dealer.”  According to local business directories the “J. Low” company, was located initially at 221-223 Market Street, the avenue shown below.

Low’s decision to sell rather than dispense whiskey over the bar appears to have been a strategic one.  Steubenville directories at the time listed only three liquor houses but some six dozen saloons, all of them needing regular restocking of spirits.  Joshua supplied them and retail customers in cobalt decorated ceramic jugs, featuring one proprietary whiskey he called “66.”  Although willing to spend significant funds to patent his inventions, he never bothered to trademark this brand name.

Low advertised vigorously in the local press: “Ask any man who is an judge of good liquor and he will tell you that our reputation for the finest goods as reasonable prices is not excelled by anyone in the city,” read one of his advertisements.  “And if you want to see how true it is, give us a call.”  Another Low ad shows a tiny child popping the cork on a bottle of sparking wine.  The text suggested that good wine was health-giving for men, women and even kiddies.  The ad urged “…get some good stuff from us and get well.  Prices are right. Goods are right.”

The press of selling alcohol could not, however, deter Joseph from his passion for inventing.  Although no evidence exists that his “thill coupling” ever saw commercial fulfillment, he turned his attention to coupling railroad cars.  This  invention, he claimed, could firmly join two pieces of rolling stock simply by pushing them together.

Once again, no proof exists that this innovation ever saw actual production.  Perhaps discouraged with the coupling field, Low next turned his inventing fever to an area of where his knowledge was more personal — coaxing liquid out of a barrel and into a jug or bottle.  Years of tediously siphoning whiskey and wine out of barrels and into wholesale or retail portions apparently had triggered a desire on Low’s part to facilitate a means whereby the liquid could be drawn off at a point higher than the tank or cask.  It consisted of two tubes rather than the standard single.  By blowing into the smaller tube, Low contended that liquid would be forced out into the larger one and the flow would continue until the container was empty.

Having patented this invention in January 1885, Low continued to work on the problem of emptying barrels.  His improved dual siphons needed to be stabilized in place if they were to work right, he subsequently suggested.  This required a specialized kind of siphon cork made of rubber to hold each tube in place.  With this further development, patented the following September he claimed he had perfected “a device…that will meet the general demands of the trade….”  While Low himself may have employed this invention, again there is no evidence of general manufacture.

Low’s last idea was for an “electric ignitor for gas engines.” Patented in 1894 just as the automobile age was dawning, he and his partner may have had in mind a way of starting a vehicle without the need for cranking to obtain a spark.  The description speaks of a battery providing the electrical current needed to ignite the gasoline, presumably the answer to retiring the automobile crank.  It would appear, however, that commercial application once again escaped the whiskey man.   

One wonders about the thoughts of Joshua’s wife about his incessant tinkering. He had married Elizabeth Mohr, a German immigrant, when he was 22 years old and she was 21.  They would go on to have a family of nine children, five girls and four boys.  In addition to the amount of time Low was spending on his “novelties,” as he sometimes called them, obtaining a patent could be expensive.  Even if the inventor did not provide a three-dimensional model, an artist had to be hired to provide a suitable drawing.  A lawyer familiar with the patent process usually was required to fill out the necessary paperwork and to make sure that the written descriptions provided were done appropriately in “patent speak.”  Otherwise the application might be rejected on its face with loss of the filing fee, itself a substantial sum.

No evidence exists that over the approximately 21 years during which Low was inventing and patenting his brain-children that any of them actually were put into commercial production or even that he was able to sell the rights.  In his lifetime Thomas Edison owned 1,093 U.S. patents, the first issued for a voting machine when he was 22 years old.  By the time Edison was 33 he had invented the light bulb and Orville Wright the airplane.   Low at 33 owned a patent on a horse hitch.

Nevertheless, the Steubenville whiskey dealer deserves no disparagement.  Whether his inventions were commercially successful or not, Joshua Low was firmly within the rich tradition of the Ohio workshop tinkerer, passionate about making something that would improve an existing mechanism or process.  Unfortunately Joshua developed heart trouble during his late 50s and died in December 1903 at the age of 58.  His joint gravestone with Elizabeth is shown here.  

After his death his elder sons who had been working with him in the business took over.  They renamed the company "Joshua Lows Sons Wholesale Liquor."  The sons piloted the company successfully until it was shut down when Ohio voted itself “dry” in 1916.

G. B. Bingham: Destroyed with the Whiskey Ring

   
In 1872 Gordon Byron Bingham of Patoka, Indiana, patented an upright tank for holding liquor that he claimed was aimed at preventing “fraud on the revenue.”  Just three years later, as a distiller, Bingham, shown right, was implicated and convicted as a participant in the “Whiskey Ring,” whose sole purpose was to defraud the revenue.  As a result, Bingham ruined himself and the town of Patoka was said to be thrown “on the downgrade of the stream of time….”

Our subject was born in Baltimore in 1826 to Candace (Jeauld) and Gordon Bingham, a well-to-do Maryland businessman. At an early age his family moved to Indiana, where he was educated.  At the age of 23 in 1849, with friends, he joined the California gold rush without notable success and returned to Indiana, settling in Pakota.

There Bingham established a trading store that proved successful enough for him to wed.   In 1858 Byron, as he was called, married an Indiana woman from Gibson County named Minerva Stockwell.   Eight years younger than her husband and 21 when they wed, she was from a prominent local family.  

Soon after their nuptials, Bingham engaged in a number of commercial ventures in Patoka and nearby Evansville.  These included a general store, flour mill, packing house and, most significant, a distillery, one he called "The Little Gray Eagle." In the 1870 census, Bingham’s occupation was given as “distiller and miller.”  His net worth was given at $77,000, the equivalent of almost $2 million today.  Observed one resident about Patoka:  “Whiskey has ever been one of the staples of this town.”

According to business directories, Bingham appears to have had two major liquor interests:  G. B. Bingham & Co., advertised as “Distillers, Rectifiers and Wholesale Dealers in Domestic Liquors,” and “Bingham Bros. Distillers.” The latter encompassed a distillery he built in nearby Evansville, known as Cresent City Distillery.   In both companies Gordon’s younger brother, John, was listed as a partner.  The two also owned a distillery in St. Louis, located at 1313 Papin Street.

Now with a wife and family, Bingham built them a home in Pakota, shown above.  One writer described it in lavish terms as:  "A fine house, embossed amidst a fine estate....Graceful scrubbery and evergreens embower the house and indeed it was a picture of Arcadian peace and beauty."

Having a mind for invention, Bingham in February 1872 patented a metal tank for holding whiskey that, he claimed, would "prevent fraud on the revenue."  Shown here his "high wine cistern" was aimed at preventing the fraudulent removal of spirits that otherwise could go undetected by the U.S. revenue gauger.  Bingham's invention, he said, provided federal officers with "...an easy means of determining at all times, the exact proof and quantity of the spirits within the tank."

Ironically, it was was not long after obtaining his patent that Bingham and his brother became entangled in the massive fraud against the U.S. government’s collection of taxes on spirits that became known as “The Whiskey Ring.”  By massive payoffs to top revenue officials and the “watchdog” gaugers,  distillers and “rectifiers” (whiskey blenders) in the Ring were able to get away with paying only a fraction of the taxes they owed.  

When the sudden drop in liquor revenues caught the attention of Secretary of the Treasury Benjamin Bristow, shown left, he created a secret investigatory task force that gather extensive evidence of the conspiracy within his own department.  In May 1875 he signed the order to roll up the Whiskey Ring.  Hundreds of distillers, rectifiers, wholesale dealers and internal revenue officials, including gaugers, were arrested.  Although the chief Ring centers were St. Louis and Chicago, as one observer put it:  “Fraudulent packages [were] seized in every important city from Boston to Galveston and from points in Central Texas to Milwaukee….”  Patoka, Indiana, was among them. 

Indictments were handed down in both Indiana and Missouri against Gordon Bingham and his brother;  they were among the first to be hauled into court.  Federal Judge Walter Q. Gresham,  presided over their trial in Evansville.   Although public opinion nationally was squarely behind Bristow and the raids, the local press sided with the defendants.  The Evansville Courier complained that the judge had allowed no loophole for the Binghams to escape the charge that they had run their distillery at Patoka without a federally required storekeeper.  Although conviction carried only a $1,000 fine, a verdict of guilty would be a significant blow to the Ring.  Accordingly the Binghams brought in top legal talent to fight the case.

During the raid, Bristow’s men had seized the Binghams' distillery, stocks of whiskey and other tangible property.  The defendants' first move was to demand their return as illegally confiscated.  The District Attorney prosecuting the case respond by obtaining an order from Judge Gresham, shown right, to open the Patoka distillery safe.  When it was found empty, the court ordered the brothers to produce their books and journals.  Those were found to be so incomplete as to be useless — a further federal violation.  The Binghams were in danger of being imprisoned for contempt of court.

At this point the brothers caved in.  They withdrew their claim to their distillery and the whiskey, and pled guilty to all government charges.  More important Gordon became the first and chief witness for the government against other Ring participants.  Under custody he was taken to Indianapolis where he testified that at the St. George Hotel in Evansville, he had given bribes totaling $1,000 to a close associate of Gen. James C. Veatch, the local collector of internal revenue shown here. Despite Bingham’s revelation, the intermediary was acquitted and Byron was allowed to return home to await sentencing, likely vilified by former Whiskey Ring associates.

In Patoka, however, Bingham got a hero’s welcome at the railroad depot, shown here. Townspeople, according to press reports, fired cannons, lit bonfires and made welcoming speeches in his honor.  An alcohol-fueled party ensued.  The Indianapolis News of November 22 was caustic in its reaction, calling Bingham “Earl of Patoka and Grand Chamberlain of the Illustrious Still Worm” and hectored “his feudal dependents” for publicly respecting a man who had committed “…the meanest, most rascally and most mischievous swindling ever practiced in this State.”

That was not how the townsfolk saw him, according to his obituary in the Evansville Journal:  "In Patoka his name was mentioned with love and respect. Every street teems with evidences of his enterprise and public spirit. Hundreds of stores and dwellings were built by him, and the present owners of them got them on easy terms. With all of them he had business transactions, and yet they loved him."

Disgraced, headed for jail, and seemingly beset on all sides,  Bingham within a matter of days was dead, passing on January 10, 1876, at the age of 49.  His obituary suggested that, faced with the prospect of the penitentiary, he developed "a form of mania" that rapidly undermined his health. He was found in bed and unresponsive by his wife, who summoned doctors.  They diagnosed "apoplexy," i.e. a heart attack, and tried unsuccessfully to resuscitate him.  At six that evening Gordon Byron Bingham died.  He was buried in Patoka Cemetery, his gravestone shown here. 

Bingham's obituary in the Evansville newspaper, while minimizing his guilt in the Whiskey Ring, opined that "...The death that ensued was probably...the kindest ending of his troubles that could come to him."  On a more cynical note, the Indianapolis News commented:  “The death of Gordon Byron Bingham will not be bad news for the Whiskey Ring.”  No longer would he be available to testify against other Ring members.

The effects of Bingham’s fall would continue to be felt.  He left behind a widow, Minerva, with five youngsters, the oldest fifteen, the youngest nine.  In addition, the government sued the family for $30,000, representing the amount believed to have been fraudulently withheld.  Others residents of Patoka subsequently were reported disgraced and bankrupted over the scandal although few if any went to jail.  

With its distilleries gone, Patoka — an Indian name meaning “log on the bottom” — went into serious decline.  In the early 1880s the following was written about the town:  “Distilleries first made her prosperous, then crooked whiskey sheared her golden locks, nipped her pristine vigor, made her prematurely gray and hurled her on the downgrade of the stream of time from which she is not likely soon to recover….”

Today Patoka has a population under 800.  The per capita income for the town in 2010 was $16,000.  About 11 percent of the population live below the poverty line.  Above is a contemporary picture of the town's main street.  Few residents, if any, are likely recall the name Gordon Byron Bingham, the factiously dubbed “Earl of Patoka,” as the man who once was responsible for the town’s prosperity — and then helped destroy it.

Note:  A 1919 biography of Judge Gresham by his wife Matilda, entitled “The Life of Walter Quintan Gresham, provided the blow-by-blow description of the trial of the Binghams in Evansville.  Another useful resource was a “History of Gibson County” by Gil Stormont, 1914.

Addendum:  Following the initial posting of this vignette, a descendant, Amy Bingham, was in touch with me and offered to provide photos and an obituary.  The pictures here of both Bingham and the Patoka home are the result.  The obituary  was helpful in filling in several blanks in the earlier piece, particularly the cause of death.  I am very grateful to Ms. Bingham for her help.