Born of pioneer stock in Oneida County, New York, in 1822, George M. Hubbard had an early wanderlust that took him throughout much of the United States. His expression on his photograph here bespeaks a man who has seen and done many things. Eventually, however, Hubbard returned to the place of his birth where, according to his biographer: “…He devoted a large portion of his attention to the manufacture of alcohol.”
The Hubbards had deep roots in Oneida County, the map shown here. Simon Hubbard, his grandfather, born in Massachusetts, was one of the pioneer settlers of the region. Arriving in 1790, Simon settled on a 130 acre tract three miles north of Waterville, New York. It became the homestead for the Hubbards, the farm they grew up in and the family cemetery where Simon and his offspring were laid to rest. Simon sired five children, one of them Maximus, George’s father.
Within a year of his birth, George’s mother, the former Zylphia Sylvester, died, leaving Maximus to raise the son on his own. For his part, the son stayed with his father until he reached his majority, assisting with the farm work and receiving a good education for the day, including some secondary schooling, “…And thus he was well equipped by mental and practical training for life’s responsible duties,” commented his biographer.
Although Maximus objected strongly to George’s leaving home, the young man insisted that he needed to see more of America and experience life beyond the Hubbard acres. Borrowing $200 from a cousin, he and a partner purchased a canal boat like the one seen here. Hubbard proved highly successful in the freight business; the partners’ first trip on the Erie Canal cleared $1,000 — equivalent to $22,000 today. After several more profitable hauls, George sold the boat and with his profits “gratified his spirit of adventure” by traveling extensively throughout the United States.
George’s peregrinations apparently brought him in contact with distilling liquor, although it also is possible the Hubbards had a small still on their farm. He settled first in Warsaw, Illinois, across the Mississippi River from Iowa and the state’s westernmost point. There Hubbard established his first distillery. Founded by German immigrants, Warsaw was a center for distilling and brewing because it was easily accessible by water and roads. By 1860 each of Warsaw’s three distilleries was receiving 100 wagon loads of corn a day.
The native New Yorker, however, did not tarry long in the Midwest. Hubbard next surfaced in Boston, running a rum distillery. Unlike whiskey, rum — a distillation of sugar cane or a sugar byproduct like molasses — is relatively easily made. If whiskey was the favored liquor of most of the states west of the Appalachians, rum was king in New England and distilleries abounded in and around Boston.
As he matured, Hubbard’s wanderlust ebbed and he found himself drawn back to his native upstate New York and Oneida County. There he founded a distillery at Deansboro, a hamlet that had the advantage of being on a main railroad line. The station, shown here, still stands and is on the National Register of Historic Places.
Possibly seeking better access for shipments of grain and other ingredients for making his whiskey, Hubbard then moved 80 miles northwest to Oswego, New York, on Lake Ontario, where he built and operated yet another distillery. This may have been his largest undertaking said to have regularly employed twenty-five workers. Hubbard was bottling his whiskey in amber flasks.
In the meantime George was having a personal life. In 1861 at the age of 38 he married Myra Scott, 24, an Oneida County farm girl and the daughter of Garret Scott. The couple would have two girls. The first, Florence, sadly died within eighteen months. The second, Helen, lived into maturity. About this time George became owner of the Hubbard ancestral lands outside Waterville but moved into the town, building a house on White Street.
By 1877 in addition to his distilling interests Hubbard opened a liquor business in Waterville at the corner of Main and Mill Streets, advertising as a “manufacture of corn, rye and malt whiskies; also, wholesale and retail dealer in foreign wines and liquors.” It was a message that he would maintain throughout the life of his firm. His building in Waterville, which he remodeled extensively, became known as “The Hubbard Block,” shown here.
With the “restless mind” characteristic of an entrepreneur, Hubbard also dabbled as an agent for buying and selling hops, traveling to California and Wisconsin to find customers. This gambit nearly tossed him into bankruptcy, according to his biographer, “…For at the time of the great fire in Chicago in 1871 he had all of his hops consigned to Chicago and that consignment represented his entire capital.” In short, his hops were consumed in the blaze.
This provided only a temporary setback as Hubbard’s liquor interests continued to generate profits. He was investing in Oneida County real estate and for a time owned a coal and milling business. During his working life Hubbard was active in the Democratic Party of Oneida County, but never sought office. He also was active in virtually all of the area’s fraternal groups, including the Masons and the Knights Templar. As a result, his biographer claimed, Hubbard “…has been personally acquainted with almost all of the large number of men of national and international reputation that [Oneida County] has produced.”
When his daughter Helen married Harold M. King, Hubbard took the young man into his business, ultimately making him a partner. As a result George was able to retire from the liquor trade about the age of 75. He spent the next few years looking after his local financial interests and basking in the glow of being an “old settler.” He died at the age of 90 in 1912. George was not interred at the family graveyard but in a large mausoleum, shown here, specially built at the Waterville Cemetery. His wife and members of his immediate family are buried there with him.
A final word about George Hubbard, a youth who traveled America only to return to his ancestral home to find success, will be left to his biographer: “Of a genial, social disposition, he is popular with all who have been associated with him either in business or private life, and not to know George M. Hubbard is almost to argue oneself unknown.”
Note: Although this post was gathered from a variety of sources, all direct quotes, attributed here to “a biographer,” are taken from “History of Oneida County, New York, From 1700 to the present time of some of its prominent men and pioneers,” by Henry J. Cookinham. The author devoted a long article to Hubbard and published the book in 1912, the year the whiskey man died.
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