Bitters Were Sweet for the Steeles of Lockport

John Wesley Steele, like many rural youths of his time, cut short his education at age sixteen in order to find employment, moving to Lockport, New York.  Over time he worked there in a variety of occupations.  But it was not until Steele engaged in the liquor trade and invented an alcoholic tonic called “Niagara Star Bitters” that he and his family would be thrust into the forefront of Western New York business  circles.

Steele was born in Royalton, Niagara County, New York, in 1821.  Described as an ambitious youth, as soon as he was able he gravitated to nearby Lockport, a city that literally was “made” by being a lock on the Erie Canal.  By 1829, Lockport was an established village.  The community was centered on the locks, and consisted mainly of immigrant Scottish and Irish workers brought in as labor.  There always was canal-related work and in 1839 Steele was recorded as the foreman of a construction gang, graduating in subsequent years to enterprises involving stabling horses and selling lumber.

About 1845, John, now 24, married a 20-year old local girl named Sophronia Houstattler.  The family would have thee children who lived to adulthood, Charles W., William Wallace, and Mary Sophronia.  A fourth, George, died in infancy.  The requirements of his growing family may have provided the incentive for Steele to try his hand in the whiskey trade.   By the early 1860s he was working for a Lockport liquor firm called S. W. Lackor & Co. It did not take long for Steele to recognize the profits to be realized by producing a new brand of bitters.  Not only were these highly alcoholic tonics popular with the public, they were considered medicine and accordingly taxed at a lower rate by the federal government. 

After some months with Lackor,  apparently deciding he could do better on his own, about 1864 Steele quit and turned to compounding, bottling, and selling a nostrum of his own invention that he called “Niagara Star Bitters.”  As shown here  he packaged it in  rectangular bottles in a range of amber shades.  

The bottles had a domed base and stood 10 1/4 inches tall.  The words “JOHN W. STEELE NIAGARA STAR BITTERS” were marked on two lines on one indented panel.  The opposite side has the names with a star between Niagara and Bitters.  On a domed top an indented panel has an embossed flying eagle facing right with three arrow in its talents.  Stars are present on three sides of the roofed shoulders and the “1864” is embossed on the fourth side.  These have been attributed to the Lockport Glass Works, a local glass house recorded having employed 56 men and 15 boys.

With the success of his bitters, Steele moved back into the liquor trade in partnership with a mayor of Lockport, R. B. Hoag, and Captain B. H. Fletcher.  They called their enterprise Fletcher, Hoag & Steele.  Although this company was credited with distilling whiskey at a plant at the northeast corner of Lock and Ontario Streets, I can find no record of such a facility.  I believe Fletcher, Hoag & Steele were “rectifying,” that is, blending raw whiskeys for color, smoothness and taste.  Their major seller was Steele’s “Niagara Star Bitters,” described as selling twelve thousand cases a year.  In 1870 Steele’s net worth was put at the hefty equivalent of $625,000.

Subsequent Lockport business directories indicated that in the mid-1870s, Steele was back working as a single proprietor.  Thus some of John W. Steele bitters bottles may date from this time, as against the earlier period.  Now rich and established among the leading businessmen of Lockport, the entrepreneur began to branch out his interests.  He financed the construction of an all-brick commercial office building in downtown Lockport called the Central Block, hailed as “an ornament to the city.”  He also joined with a partner in business called Steele, Wells & Company.  This outfit dealt in coal and lumber, and manufacturing sashes, doors and blinds in a Lockport factory.  It also owned a lumber and coal yard in East Lockport. With Hoag, Steele also built a large malt house.

As he matured, Steele’s son, William Wallace, increasingly had become part of family ventures.  Because of the family’s new-found affluence, Wallace was able not only to complete his secondary schooling but also to attend the Rochester Business College.  In 1872 Wallace at the age of 22 married Lydia L. Freeman, 19, of Middleport, New York, the daughter of prominent businessman Benjamin F. Freeman.  They would have three children. Wallace was active in community affairs, serving for 1876 and 1877 on the Niagara County Board of Supervisors and participating in several Masonic groups.  He also served a term as a volunteer fireman.

In 1878 as John Steele looked after other interests, Steele & Co. was reorganized as Steele, Torrance & Co. with R. B. Hoag as a silent partner and major stockholder. The firm billed itself as “Dealers in Foreign and Domestic Wines and Liquors” and continued marketing the “Celebrated” Niagara Star Bitters.  In 1881 Torrence retired, leaving Wallace Steele and Hoag at the helm of Steele, Torrence. 

John W. Steele died in June 1882, age 61, after a lingering illness.  According to his newspaper obituary:  “The supposed cause of death was cancer of the stomach, but a post mortem examination this morning disclosed the fact that the cause of death was a degeneration of the liver, kidneys and spleen, and a general breaking down of the system.”  After a service at Lockport’s Grace Episcopal Church, where he was a member, Steele was buried in Glenwood Cemetery.  His obituary hailed him for a “life of industry and usefulness.”

A year after the father’s death, however, the roof fell in for Wallace Steele when his company was thrown into bankruptcy.  The Lockport Journal claimed that:   “The cause of the failure is mainly losses in business extending over several years, the firm of Steele, Torrence & Co. having been considered on a precarious foundation for some time back.”   The main culprit was R. B. Hoag who had racked up debts equivalent to $1.6 million today and was forced to liquidate his local business interests, including the liquor house, to pay for them.

The individual liabilities of Wallace Steele were a small fraction of what Hoag owed and he had sufficient assets to cover them.  As his “preferred creditor” he designated Benjamin Freeman, his father-in-law.  While obviously shaken by these events, this Steele emerged from bankruptcy to start anew.  Later it would be said of Wallace:  “Under many business difficulties in former years, he has always shown that indomitable business energy which has enabled him to laugh at misfortune and to place himself in the front ranks with the successful men at the present time.”  

This time Wallace Steele opened his liquor house under two names, his own and “L. L. Steele,” representing his wife, Lydia L. Steele.  Both were located at Number 2 Lock Street in Lockport.  Shown here is a whiskey jug with L.L. Steele etched in it.   After a successful run of about twenty years at the head of these alcohol-based ventures, Wallace died in 1906 and was buried not far from his father, mother and infant brother in Glenwood Cemetery.  He was only 56 years old. 

His wife, Lydia, who increasingly had been brought into management, continued to operate the liquor house for the next two years.  By 1909, however, the company had disappeared from Lockport business directories.  Lydia was listed simply as “widow of Wallace.”  Thus ended the half century that the Steele name and “Celebrated Niagara Star Bitters” were renowned in Western New York.  John Steele’s nostrum had brought the family a long way.

Note:  Coming across the whiskey jug that opens this post, I found my research — as has happened before — carrying me to the Peachridge Glass blog of Ferdinand Meyer V.   Ferd featured the bottles, including several shown here.  Nevertheless, I decided there was a story to be told about the Steele family and its rise in Lockport through the success of Niagara Star Bitters.  A key source for the information found on this post was Landmarks of Niagara County, New York, edited by William Pool and published by D. Mason & Company in 1897. Thanks go to Joe Gourd for providing the image of the Steele sign above from his extensive bitters ephemera collection.