Did Dr. Hessig Write a Prescription for Murder?

 

The whiskey jug shown here bears the name of H.T. Hessig, a  distillery owner and physician in Paducah, Kentucky, whose wife died in June 1905 of mysterious causes. The couple were known to have physical altercations, she had filed for divorce demanding alimony and he was being forced into bankruptcy.  Suspicion immediately fell on Dr. Hessig. But was he guilty?

Dr. Hessig’s road to this pivotal time in his life began about 1860 when, according to the 1920 census, he was born in Germany of parents who originally hailed from Switzerland.  Although Herman’s time of arrival in America is unknown, according to his obituary he was graduated from the Long Island Hospital [Medical] College in 1871, shown left, and for sixteen years practiced medicine in New York City.  He then returned briefly to Germany to study pharmacy.

Exactly how and when Dr. Hessig made the move to Paducah is unknown but it likely occurred in the late 1870s or early 1880s.  Established as a town in 1830, Paducah lies at the confluence of the Tennessee and Ohio Rivers.  Steamboats plied the rivers and the city’s port facilities were important to trade and transportation. The Illinois Central Railroad arrived as the primary north-south railway connecting the industrial cities of Chicago and East St. Louis to the Gulf of Mexico at Gulfport, Mississippi and New Orleans.  A foundry for making rail and locomotive components added to a thriving economy — one that could afford a European trained doctor. The downtown in 1900 is shown below.

Although Paducah was not a major Kentucky whiskey-making and distribution center like Louisville or Lexington, it did contain distilleries.  The scanty documentation available about Dr. Hessig’s distillery indicates it was designated on federal rosters as Registered Distillery #35 in District #2.  Whiskey guru Chester Zoeller in his book “Bourbon in Kentucky” provides few details but indicates that the distillery was founded by the doctor around the turn of the 20th Century, located two miles southwest of the Paducah Courthouse at the corner of Bridge and Mill Streets.

According to Zoeller, the Hessig Distillery opened with a mashing capacity of 40 bushels of grain a day, yielding about four barrels of whiskey daily, a small output for a Kentucky plant.  Storage capacity for aging barrels was similarly limited. Moreover, the distillery was only in operation six months per year.  My assumption is that Dr. Hessig was selling his “Clark’s River Handmade Sour Mash Whiskey” mainly at wholesale to Paducah area saloons in gallon and two gallon (left) ceramic jugs like the ones shown below. 

Federal records show transactions at the distillery as late as 1904 under the name of Hessig.  Available evidence indicates Dr. Hessig sold the facility about 1904 or 1905 to members of the well-known Weil distilling family. It is unclear whether the sale was related to the doctor’s marital and financial problems.  In succeeding years until National Prohibition the Weils greatly expanded production.

Meanwhile Dr. Hessig had more than enough on his mind.  He had married, apparently for the first time, about the age of the age of 45.  His bride was Ida Ethel Levan, a woman about 21 years old.  She originally came from a farm in Livingston County about 20 miles north of Paducah and was the daughter of William and Barbara Levan.  The couple met when Ida Ethel moved to Paducah in 1898.

The significant difference in their ages likely was a problem.  It was not long before Dr. Hessig and his wife began “fussing,” to use the words of Elita Towie, their African-American housekeeper.  According to press reports at the inquest Ms. Towie related that she witnessed one altercation “…In which they fought from the library into the kitchen…Mrs. Hessig ending the quarrel with two blows on the doctor with a poker.”  According to press accounts the couple had been in police court more than once for domestic disturbances.

On the morning of June 13, 1905, Ida Ethel Levan Hessig was found dead in her bedroom.  She had been discovered there by her doctor husband who was alone at the time.  The circumstances were deemed suspicious although Dr. Hessig insisted his wife had died as the result of an epileptic seizure. Paducah detectives Baker and Moore were assigned to the case and a coroner’s jury was empaneled.  The all-male jury met at the funeral home three days after Ida Ethel’s death.

When her female physician, Dr. Olivia Nelon, took the stand, a juryman ask her why Ida Ethel had not chosen her husband to be her doctor.  Dr. Nelon replied that she could only answer by repeating Mrs. Hessig’s own words to her:  “The damned wooden-shoed Dutchman hasn’t got sense enough.”  Perhaps there was some deeper concern lurking in Ida Ethel’s mind.  Ida Ethel confided to Ms. Towie that she was afraid Dr. Hessig might attempt to hurt her once he found out she was determined to get a divorce.  She also was asking a large alimony settlement that likely was part of the financial troubles driving her husband to declare voluntary bankruptcy.

Some locals attending the inquest thought Dr. Hessig might have been setting the stage for ridding himself of a major headache.  He had spread the word that Ida Ethel had shown signs of epilepsy soon after their marriage and that she was subject to frequent seizures.  He cautioned her parents and others never to mention that condition to her lest it cause her further damage.  The Dr. Hessig’s mother, who later admitted doting on her boy, testified that she had seen Ida Ethel have “fits” multiple times.  Strangely enough, however, the live-in staff had never witnessed such episodes.  Dr. Nelon testified that while she had treated Mrs. Hessig for “female complaints,” she had not known of any epilepsy.  Ida Ethel’s father testified that she had never before shown any signs of that malady while growing up.  Her brother earlier had died of epilepsy, however, found dead in bed.

Levan also testified that he had heard many spats between the couple and threats against his daughter from Dr. Hessig.  Characterized in the The Paducah Sun as a “gruff but kindly old man,” Levan told the coroner’s jury he had heard the doctor say he would be “getting rid of his wife” but assumed he was referring to allowing the divorce to go forward.  

In his testimony Detective Moore said that preliminary investigation indicated that while Ida Ethel may have had epilepsy he was not satisfied she died from it.  Moore asked for more time to gather evidence but the coroner would not allow it, calling on the jury to rule immediately on the basis of the evidence already submitted.  The initial decision, according to the Paducah Sun was “somewhat disagreeable to Dr. Hessig.”  His lawyer later in the day, however, was able to persuade the jury members to amend the language. In the end they exonerated Dr. Hessig completely from any connection to Ida Ethel’s death.  Case closed.  Many locals remained convinced the doctor had gotten away with murder.

When he declared insolvency, Dr. Hessig had claimed $15,000 in liabilities and no assets.  At the bankruptcy court his mother made still another effort to assist her beloved son.  She claimed that the doctor owed her $17,000 that took precedence over all other claims.  Although the judge took the her statement under advisement, it is unlikely he honored it in his final 1906 decision.

Dr. Hessig went back to the practice of medicine, ignoring the hostile stares of townsfolk.  Ancestry records indicates that he remarried not long after Ida Ethel’s death.  Her name was May Essie Graham Boylan.  If her date of birth is correct , May Essie was only 17 0r 18 at the time of their nuptials, some 35 years younger than Dr. Hessig.  That marriage seeming did not last.  A 1913  record shows Herman then marrying Mary Jane Page of Birmingham, Kentucky.  Fourteen years younger than the doctor, she appears to have been married previously.

In 1931 while vacationing in Tampa, Florida, Dr. Hessig died at the age of 78.  His body was returned to Paducah where he was buried in Oak Grove Cemetery,  Old Addition, Section 19, Lot 301. The Hessig plot and monument are shown here, along with Dr. Hessig's headstone.  Mary Jane, who died in 1944, is buried beside him.  Ida Ethel is also buried at Oak Grove, but at another location.  The mystery of her death was never solved.

 

Note:  As often happens I was alerted to the story of Dr. Hessig by seeing and trying to identify the origins of a single whiskey jug, the one that opens this post.  Although the doctor appears to have owned his distillery for only four or five years, his name does appear in Kentucky whiskey history.  Through genealogy sites and Paducah newspaper stories, it was possible to reconstruct the story of Dr. Hessig’s first marriage and its fatal conclusion.