James Gorman: Selling Whiskey with "Blarney"

When saloonkeeper and whiskey dealer James Gorman looked out from his Lynchburg, Virginia, home to the Southern states and localities that had banned the production and sale of alcohol, he saw a vast thirsty audience and an open road to supply it.  But so had many others.  This son of Irish immigrants, however, had inherited a gift of “blarney,” a particularly beneficial quality in the liquor trade.  Beyond his competition Gorman had the ability to shape the written word to amuse or dazzle and to convince readers that his whiskeys were the best their money could buy.  In an 18-page catalogue for his mail order trade, the dealer sounded multiple themes: 

Page 3: We have Liquors for CORN SHUCKING and ICE CUTTING, as well as for the Wedding, and some for the baby too.”

Page 5:  Gorman’s Private Stock….This Whiskey is put up on my own formula, and is considered by judges and experts to be the best blended whiskey on the market today.

Page 6:  “The World Cannot Beat It….Gorman’s Pure Rye is a brand made from the very best Maryland and Pennsylvania Ryes distilled, always mellow and nice.  The doctors’ best tonic;  good for the sick and doesn’t hurt the well.”

Page 8:  “HONEST DEALINGS….I was born and raised in Old Virginia and the people who know me know that when I say anything I mean it, and can be relied up to the very letter…NO HUMBUGGING AND NO  TWO-FACED BUSINESS in my establishment.”

Page 9: Shown here is an illustrated ad that indicates Gorman’s Private Stock High-Ball Whiskey “makes old men young again.”  Wink, wink.

Therapeutic claims by Gorman for his liquor were standard in the trade.  Whiskey was considered part of the physician’s pharmacopeia and still in general medical use.  The Irish whiskey dealer occasionally went too far.  In the circa 1900 ad below, he claimed that Gorman’s “Piney River Corn” was “The Greatest Kidney Cure on Earth.”

James Gorman’s “no holds barred” attitude was typical of his life.  He was born in Lynchburg, Virginia, in August 1866, the son of Margaret (Moriarity) and Richard Gorman, both immigrants from Ireland.  His father was a worker on the railroad.  The Ancestry record of his siblings indicates two half-brothers born in Ireland, two sisters and a brother who died in infancy, a brother and sister who lived to maturity, and a half-brother who may have been the product of his mother’s remarriage.  Gorman appears to received the standard schooling of that time in Virginia, elementary and some secondary.

Lynchburg city directories first record Gorman’s career path in 1885, when at the age of 19, he was employed as a clerk at Adams Bros. & Paynes, a local company that sold “coal, wood, lumber, lime, cement, baled forage, carriages, wagons & etc.”  About 1890 he moved on and up to the position of the bookkeeper for Bell, Barker & Jennings, a Lynchburg hardware wholesaler.  By 1897 he had struck out on his own as the proprietor of a Martha Washington Candy Works, a national franchise confectionary, a shop likely run out of his home at 1103 12th Street.

In October 1887 Gorman married Elizabeth J. “Lizzie” Magri, the daughter of Frank Magri, a Lynchburg  grocer who had emigrated from Italy and Mary Jane (McCarron) Magri, an Irish immigrant.   James and Lizzie both were 21 years old.  The couple would have ten children over the next eighteen years, two of whom died infancy.  Shown below is a family photo from about 1912.  Many of these youngsters would grow up to distinguished careers.

Family responsibilities provided a powerful incentive for Gorman to increase his income.  He would soon find out, as Dorothy Parker quipped, “Candy is dandy, but liquor is quicker.”   A shot glass with James’ initials on it shown here might suggest he entered the liquor trade as early 1892.  Unfortunately, there is no evidence of that in Lynchburg directories.  Gorman’s first listing as a saloonkeeper occurred in 1900.  One explanation may be that he had purchased an existing liquor business.  In such cases it was common for the new owner to cite the original founding.

Like many saloonkeepers, Gorman understood early on that selling liquor by the case or bottle was more lucrative than serving individual drinks over the bar.  Accompanying his saloon was a wholesale liquor and mail order house. In that capacity he was the distributor in the region for well known national brands of whiskey such as “Old Charter,” “Paul Jones,” “Duffy’s Malt,” “Gibson Rye,” “Sherwood,” and “Old Possum Hollow.” He issued shot glasses advertising several of those brands.

More important, he was marketing his own whiskey.  The 1908 directory listed him as a “rectifier,” that is, someone who was receiving barrels of raw whiskey from distillers in Maryland, Kentucky, Pennsylvania and perhaps elsewhere, mixing them to achieve color, taste and smoothness and then decanting the blends into labeled bottles for sale.  This process required real skill to accomplish successfully and it appears James had mastered it.  Thus were the origins of “Gorman’s Pure Rye,” “Gorman’s Private Stock,” “Gorman’s Piney River Corn Whiskey,” and “Piedmont Corn Whiskey.” The Lynchburg liquor dealer might have been responsible for other brands but since he apparently never trademarked any of his whiskeys, it is impossible to identify them.  Those would have been sold at retail in glass bottles of varying sizes with flasks as the most popular.

Gorman’s whiskeys were of a quality to gain a reputation beyond Virginia and the South.  At least two Northern liquor dealers featured his brands.  One was Guggenheim Brothers, a liquor business that began in Tiffin, Ohio, moving to Cleveland about 1882.  The brothers not only advertised Gorman Rye, they issued a shot glass with the name etched in the glass.  A second liquor dealer was John J. Finn of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.  Finn advertised Old Gorman Rye among his featured brands and issued shot glasses in its name.

Events seemed to be going Gorman’s way until 1909.  After the Civil War Virginia had allowed independent municipalities to enact “local option” dry laws.  Votes on whether or not to allow the sale of alcohol in Lynchburg were put to citizens in referendums in 1886, 1890, and 1898.  Championed by saloonkeepers like Gorman, each time the “wets” won.  In 1909, however, Lynchburg’s prohibitionists were successful in passing an ordinance prohibiting the sale of liquor within the city limits.  Gorman was forced to shut down his bar and liquor sales.

Continuing at his 63 Ninth Street address, Gorman advertised his establishment as selling soft drinks and cigars.  In truth, however, he had another ploy in mind for continuing to serve his local clientele.  He established a branch of James Gorman Company 165 miles west of Lynchburg in Staunton, Virginia, probably employing no more than one or two people.  He would take orders for liquor at his soft drink emporium, transmit them to Staunton where they would be filled and the booze sent by railway express direct to the buyer. 

When local authorities caught wind of this scheme, they were quick to arrest Gorman, charging him with violation of the liquor laws.   On August 6, 1909, he was tried in Lynchburg’s police court.  Attorneys for the local Anti-Saloon League pressed the judge for jail time but Gorman was given only a $50 fine.  His lawyers announced the whiskey man would appeal his conviction to the state Corporation Court.

That was a wise move.  The Virginia Corporation Commission had wet sympathies.  Earlier, when four far western Virginia towns officially banned alcohol sales, levied stiff fines on violators, and by threats of arrest intimidated the Southern Express Co. from delivering mail order alcohol, the Commission declared the ordinances void, ruled that whiskey merchants could sell liquor up to five gallons at a time to those customers, and required the express company to deliver it.  My assumption is that the Commission was similarly favorable to Gorman’s appeal.

Meanwhile for a time Gorman moved his liquor operation to Roanoke, Viriginia, a town that had remained aggressively “wet” while localities all around the state were voting dry.  A glass jug with that designation and the address 16 East Salem avenue is shown here.   The Roanoke directory listing for 1910 indicates that Gorman not only had opened a saloon and was selling whiskey from that location, he was living in Roanoke at 3 Norfolk Avenue SE.  Breaking into a new territory, he was aggressively advertising locally.  Among his ads he was touting his Piedmont Corn Whiskey as having “cured more Consumptives than all Doctors.”  Adversity had not dulled his blarney approach.

Two years after Lynchburg went dry a subsequent vote overturned the local dry  laws. Gorman soon returned there to a new location at 100 Ninth Street  and opened another saloon, shown here.  Now he was free to forget about soft drinks and concentrate on whiskey.  Much of the Deep South was officially dry.  In 1908 Alabama, Georgia and Mississippi all had banned making or selling alcohol.  North Carolina followed a year later and South Carolina’s corrupt state-run liquor system had collapsed.  Federal court decisions established that the Interstate Commerce Clause of the Constitution permitted residents of dry states or localities to purchase alcohol out-of-state by mail order and have it delivered without interference by authorities.

Southern fields were ripe and ready for harvest, Gorman knew. In Lynchburg he was well positioned carry on his trade.  From its Union Station the city was served by a number of rail lines extending into the South, the principal ones being Norfolk & Western and Great Southern.  For the next five years, James Gorman Company knew an era of prosperity.  That ended In 1916 when Virginia voters approved a statewide referendum banning making or selling alcoholic beverages.  Moreover, the U.S. Congress, feeling prohibitionist pressure, had passed the Webb-Kenyon Act banning mail order liquor sales into dry areas.  Gorman was forced to shut down his saloon a second time and abandon his mail order trade.  He was only 50 years old.

Shown here in middle age standing with Lizzie on the porch of his home, Gorman for the ensuing three years was not recorded in city directories pursing any occupation. That changed in 1921 when he emerged as a partner in the Home Insurance Agency in Lynchburg and president of the Mead Toline Coal Company in West Virginia.  Both were common pursuits for whiskey men suddenly forced out of business.  Throughout the early Twentieth Century coal had been in demand. Total output soared, doubling every ten years to a peak of 680 short tons in 1918.  Coal mining was considered a solid investment.  By 1923 Gorman was identified as the president-treasurer of Ingram Branch Mining and Killarney Smokeless Coal, both companies located in West Virginia.  

Gorman’s responsibilities must have required frequent 165 mile trips between Lynchburg and the mining sites.  Even though the journey could be made by automobile, the roads into West Virginia were mud or gravel and not easily traversed.  Rugged travel and other strains might have weakened Gorman’s health.  On February 17, 1924, without warning he was stricken with a massive heart attack and died, only 57 years old. Two days later the Lynchburg whiskey man was buried in Holy Cross Cemetery while his widow and family, including two minor children, grieved at his gravesite.

A tall Celtic cross marks the Gorman plot, towering over James’ marker.  James Gorman’s lasting legacy was in the achievements of his children, whom he empowered to obtain the advanced education he never knew.  Two of his sons became prominent physicians and a third son, a lawyer and judge.  One, or possibly two, daughters were lifelong Sisters of Charity.

Note:  This post on James Gorman of Lynchburg, Virginia, would not have occurred except for a contact from his great-grandson, Dr. James “Jim” Gorman, of Wellesley, Mass.  After seeing my post on the Gorman shot glass from the Guggenheim Bros. (Sept. 7, 2016), he was in touch with me about his whiskey man ancestor and provided some biographical information.  I was immediately interested.  Dr. Gorman subsequently sent me further material and many of the photos used throughout the vignette.  His help was essential and most appreciated.  He currently is assembling information on the ancestors and descendants of James Gorman and Elizabeth Magri.  If you can provide, or would like to obtain, information on them, he can be reached at jgorman999@gmail.com." The photo of James and Lizzie Gorman on their porch is through the courtesy of the Lynchburg Museum System.