Three Who Helped Make Jack Daniel

 

 Foreword:  President John F. Kennedy once noted that: “Success has many fathers, but failure is an orphan.”  Such it has been for the success of Jack Daniel in creating his famous whiskey in Lynchburg. Tennessee.  Multiple individuals have come forward claiming to have been his mentor.  Two with dubious claims, Hop Lee [April 7, 2014]  and Billy Pearson [Dec. 4, 2015] have been profiled here.  Three others deserve mention for their enabling of this iconic brand of Tennessee whiskey.  Their contributions briefly are recorded here.

 A Civil War soldier, farmer,s store keeper, and lay preacher of the conservative Union Lutheran Church in Lois, Tennessee, Daniel Houston Call, shown here,  might have fallen into the obscurity that history accords most of us, except for one decision.  Faced with the question of hiring and harboring a 16-year-old orphan boy of uncommonly small stature, Dan Call said yes and the rest is history.  The boy was Jack Daniel.

Described as a “sinewy, long-legged fellow with a scarecrow figure who walked with a hint of a strut,”  Call was adept on horseback and knew how to shoot.  That made him eligible to join an elite marauder unit of the Confederate army called Forrest’s Escorts, numbering about 100 men over the course of the war.  Their leader was the charismatic and bold Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest. 

Although Call was not among the original members of Forrest’s Escort, most of them recruited in Tennessee, he joined early in the conflict.  He bid good-bye to his wife, Mary Jane (nee Nelson), whom he had married when she was 16 years old, and rode off to the fighting.   Call served throughout the conflict and is recorded with the unit at the time of Forrest’s surrender in Gainesville, Alabama, at the end of the war. 

Arriving back in Tennessee, Call found that Mary, shown here, had added a new face to the dinner table.  His name was Jasper but he preferred to be called “Jack” Daniel.  The five foot, two inch, local boy had been recommended to Mary as someone to help her in Call’s absence with the general store and other chores.  Although small, Jack was of sturdy build and energetic.  With three youngsters to look after, Mary jumped at the chance for help and brought the boy into the Call home.  But what would her husband say when he returned?  Mary and Jack need not have worried.  Although conservative in his views, Dan Call was a strong Christian and believed in helping his neighbor.  Moreover, he was cognizant of having been an orphan himself.  He accepted Jack into their home and understood the boy’s interest in operating the distillery out back.  

Enter “Uncle Nearest” Green, shown here in an artist’s depiction.  Call commended the young Daniel to the slave, his master distiller.  The preacher is quoted saying to Green, "I want [Jack] to become the world's best whiskey distiller — if he wants to be. You help me teach him.”   Nearest Green apparently was enthusiastic about the assignment.  He is known to have loved children, siring eleven of his own with wife Harriet, nine sons and two daughters.  When slavery ended at the end of the Civil War in 1865, the Green family stayed with Call.  

A year later the now mature Jack Daniel opened his own distillery, employing two of Green’s son, George and Eli.  Speculation is that they include the black man shown here, sitting in a gathering of the distillery workforce.  Immediately next to one of the brothers is Daniel wearing a white fedora and beard.  Yet another of Nearest’s sons, Edde, also was employed by Daniel. 

At least four of Nearest's grandchildren joined the Jack Daniel Distillery:  Ott, Charlie, Otis and Jesse Green. In all, seven generations of Nearest Green descendants have worked for the distillery , with three direct descendants continuing to work there in contemporary times.   As shown below, the larger distillery staff was an integrated group.  

Since August 2017, the Brown-Forman Corporation that owns the Jack Daniel's Distillery and brand name officially recognized Green as their first head distiller, adding his story to their website.  In October 2017, the company also added a narrative about Nearest Green’s contribution to their distillery tours. 

The Gunters.  When Jack Daniel in Lynchburg, Tennessee, needed assistance in developing a market for his whiskey,  brothers in Nashville, William Thomas and Charles David Gunter, recognizing the quality and appeal of Daniel's product, helped make the distiller’s “No. 7” a widely recognized brand.  Relatively isolated in Lynchburg, a small town with one traffic light and located about seventy miles south of Nashville, Daniel needed the “big city” resources the Gunters could provide from their wholesale liquor house.

The Gunter brothers bottled whiskey for Daniel. They had the staff and equipment to decant the barrels from his distillery into ceramic jugs that they ordered from area potteries and glass bottles bought from local glass houses.   Early jugs have a primitive look to them with the labels in cobalt and black.  In time the presentation improved with more legible and professional-looking stenciled labels.  These jugs varied from quart size to one and two gallons. 

  

The Gunters advertised for Daniel.  In Nashville the brothers had access to a number of publications to run newspaper ads for “Jack Daniel No. 7” and his Old Time Distillery.  The ads proclaimed the brothers “sole agents” for the Lynchburg whiskey.  The Gunters also had access to modern printing techniques and specialists to design attractive labels for the glass bottles and flasks they merchandised under Daniels’ name.

The Gunters assisted marketing and distribution for Daniel. Nashville was a hub for roads and, more important, rail lines.  Shipment of Jack Daniels whiskey was possible to all parts of the Nation.  Assistance from the Nashville brothers became particularly important after 1904 when Daniel's No. 7 received a surge in popularity after receiving a gold medal for whiskey at the 1904 St. Louis World’s Fair.  The resulting demand required marketing efforts considerably beyond the capacity of the Lynchburg distillery — and over the next few years the Gunter brothers did their best to provide it.

Many have claimed to be “fathers” of Jack Daniel’s success but only Dan Call, Nearest Green and the Gunthers truly deserve that recognition.

Note:  Fuller vignettes on each of these men may be found elsewhere on this site:  Dan Call, November 14, 2021;  Nearest Green, August 21, 2018; and the Gunther Brothers, September 19, 2017.