His Heritage Meant Little to Lloyd Addison

Shown here, Lloyd Dulaney Addison sprang from one of Maryland’s richest and most notable families of the Colonial Era but it benefited him little.  In the end, through his own exertions he hewed out a fiefdom, including a distillery, amid the hills of Breckinridge County, Kentucky.  

In England, Addisons were members of the gentry, and while not aristocrats, were sufficiently distinguished to have a coat of arms.  In early Maryland the Addisons were one of the most economically, socially, and politically prominent families.  The Oxon Hill Manor House, shown in a sketch below, was their home. Around it spread their large plantation on which as many as 109 slaves toiled, according to Maryland historians.

Lloyd’s grandfather, the Rev. Walter Dulany Addison, shown here, was a well-known cleric, founder of St. John’s Church in Georgetown, D.C. and one of four clergymen officiating at George Washington’s funeral.  Important enough to warrant a Wikipedia article, the clergyman about 1800 began to make arrangements for the eventual emancipation of his slaves.  Rev. Addison is believed to have altered his will so that upon his death all males over 25 and females over 20 years of age would be freed.  It appears that he subsequently proceeded with manumissions, but historians say, details are lacking.

Rev. Addison proved to be an inept custodian of the estate he had inherited and to make ends meet compelled to dispose of family land piece by piece.  Finally, in 1910 he was forced to sell the Oxon Hill Manor House and remaining acreage.  Those events may have impelled Walter’s son, our subject’s father, also named Lloyd, to leave Maryland about 1819 and head for Louisville, Kentucky.  There he was counted among young business pioneers, engaged in molasses sales.  A short biography says of him:  “He was a gentleman of fine appearance and polished manners; and a merchant of a very high character for business capacity and integrity.”

In Louisville, shown here as it looked in 1846, Lloyd Senior married Ann Marie Sands.  The couple would go on to have five children, three daughters and two sons.  The last was our Lloyd Addison, born on Christmas Day 1859 in New Orleans where the family earlier had moved.  Why the father chose the “Big Easy” is unclear.  According to the 1900 census, he was working there as a “public weigher.” that is, someone licensed to weigh bulk commodities for a living.

If records are correct, his father died when Lloyd was still an infant.  My surmise is that, as a result, the widow Anna Marie determined to return to Louisville, her home town, with her minor children.  Although the fatherless youngster was given an elementary education, Lloyd’s schooling was limited.  He went to work at a young age, likely to help support his mother.  Addison first surfaced in Louisville directories in 1881 working as a clerk.   During that same year, at 22 years old he married Mary Alice Setzer, 20, in Louisville.  She had been born in Kentucky of native Kentuckians.  Addison apparently had chosen well.  Mary Alice later would be described as “…a most charming lady, possessing business qualifications of a high order.”  I can find no evidence of children.

Marriage may have provided the impetus for Addison to move up in the world. Three years later he had graduated from clerk to being a partner in a grocery store with a man named Nelson Clore.   Meanwhile, he had discovered and bought land about sixty miles south of Louisville along the Ohio River in Breckinridge County.  The community was located at Lock #45 on the Ohio River and boasted a train station on what later became the Louisville & Nashville Railroad. 

The town’s picturesque name, “Holt’s Bottom,” celebrated local hero Joseph Holt, shown here, whose mansion home still stands.  Holt long before had gone to Washington, D.C. where he served as Commissioner of Patents, Postmaster General and Secretary of War in the Buchanan Administration.  President Abraham Lincoln named him Judge Advocate General of Union forces and Holt was one of three judges during the trial of the conspirators in the Lincoln assassination.

In 1886, Addison opened the first general store in Holt’s Bottom and became its postmaster.  Mary Alice worked right beside him, listed in the 1900 census as “salesman and clerk.”  By 1889, the enterprising couple by strength of personality  had convinced county officials to rename a section of the town. No longer part of Holt, the area became “Addison.”  Having repeatedly invested in land there, Lloyd owned a considerable amount of the town bearing his name.

Addison opened the Old Breckenridge Distillery in 1895.  From Peter Best he  purchased distillery RD#11, located in Hancock County, Kentucky, for $1,000.  The structures and equipment were dismantled and moved to his site in Breckinridge County.  The plant had a mashing capacity of 150 bushels a day and warehouse capacity for 5,000 barrels.  

Addison marketed his whiskey with ads in the Wine & Spirits Journal where he described his products as  “hearty, strong, bourbons for bar, bottling or blending,” indicating that he was selling his whiskey wholesale to “rectifiers.” One observer called Addison’s “a perfect sour mash, using a ninety-six hour fermentation.”  Addison featured only one proprietary brand, “Old Breckinridge Hand-Made Sour Mash Whiskey,” a label he never bothered to trademark.

He marketed Old Breckinridge in “Albany slip” brown stenciled jugs.  Shown here are three examples of his containers, avidly sought by collectors today.  One, shown above, in script text reads:  “L.D. Addison, Old Breckinridge Whiskey.”  A second with block letters read:  “L. D. Addison, Distiller of Old Breckinridge Whiskey, Addison, Ky.”   The stencil for the third label is more elaborate:  “L. D. Addison, Distiller, Old Breckinridge Handmade Sourmash Whiskey, Pure Apple Brandy, Addison, Ky.”

As indicated above, Addison also operated a brandy distillery, capable of mashing 46 bushels of apples or other fruit daily and producing 300 barrels of brandy annually, depending on the availability of apples.  On his 250 acre farm Addison had devoted eighty acres to orchard and was not entirely dependent on the marketplace for his fruit.

Addison’s enterprises eventually extended beyond the distillery.  He ran a grist mill that according to one observer “is mostly used for custom work and is kept pretty busy.“ He also operated an agricultural implement warehouse and had expanded his general merchandise store to 45 by 115 feet in size, stocked with goods worth an estimated $25,000, equivalent to $625,000 today.  

He also found time to build Mary Alice and himself a home to complete with the Holt mansion.  The site made use of a cellar, foundation and brick walls of an house built in 1814 by an early Kentucky pioneer.  Onto those venerable ruins, the Addisons grafted a structure modern for the times.  Said one observer:  “Their handsome residence is an ornament to the locality, and can be seen for miles owning to the sightliness of its position on a hill.”  Unfortunately the house today no longer exists.

Despite living most of the time in Addison, Lloyd for a number of years operated a sales facility in Louisville, visiting his employees there frequently while staying in local rooming houses.  According to business directories, he opened his store in 1906, located at 655 Market Street.  After three years he moved to two locations on South Fourth Street.  After 1909 directory references end.  Addison may have found himself overextended.  As early as 1904 he sought to sell his general store, claiming:  “The store has a trade of about $25,000 a year, and will furnish a good opening for someone familiar with that business.”

By 1910 Addison appears completely to have exited the whisky trade.  Whether this change occurred by personal choice or because Breckinridge County voted “dry” is unclear.  In subsequent business directories he appears to have opened a restaurant in Louisville on South Fourth Street.  By 1914, he is listed as working a “steward” at the Galt House, the city’s premier hotel, shown here.  In the 1920 Federal census he listed his occupation as “farmer” and 1930, “retired.”

Although I can find no record of her death or burial site, it appears that Mary Alice,  Lloyd’s helpmate of many years, died about 1931.  Despite his advanced age, Addison appears to have wed a second time in 1932, this time to Harriet Louise Malone, a Kentucky woman of similarly advanced age.  Three years later, Lloyd Addison died on August 11, 1935, in Breckinridge County.  Seventy-five years old when he passed, he was buried in the county’s Cloverport Cemetery #1.  His gravestone is shown here.  

As the history of the Addisons reveals, family wealth and prestige often do not translate from one generation to the next.  Fortunes are lost. Bad decisions are made. Individuals die unexpectedly.  Lloyd Addison understood that his pedigree was not a ticket to success so he carved out his own future.  And whiskey was his ally.

Note:  Although many sources were tapped for this vignette, a prime one was an article in the Wine & Spirits Journal, 1904 volume, a story that also supplied the photo of Lloyd D. Addison.