Foreword: For the first time in the dozen years of this website, the amount of photographic and written material available about a distillery, forty years in operation, and about its owners is of sufficient magnitude to suggest that the article be presented in two parts. This segment is devoted to the distillery founder James Hampton Rogers. The next post will deal subsequent owners, James’ wife, Lida Clarke Rogers, and their son, John C. Rogers.
Shown here, James H. Rogers is not generally listed among the “Whiskey Barons” who made Kentucky liquor famous throughout the United States and, indeed the world. Unlike other distillers he never was dubbed a “Kentucky Colonel” by the governor, indicating an extraordinary contribution to the economy of the Bluegrass State, nor has he been profiled in the many books on Kentucky bourbon. Despite a foreshortened life, however, Rogers founded a distillery that lasted an astonishing 40 years and might have gone on longer except for National Prohibition.
According to census figures, Rogers was born in 1845 in Fleming County, not far from Maysville, a jurisdiction carved out of Mason County in 1798 and named for Colonel John Fleming, a noted Indian fighter and early settler of the area. Today Fleming County is known as the “Covered Bridge Capital of Kentucky. The boy was the son of Lucinda and James M. Rogers, a native of Virginia. His father was a merchant tailor operating a store that sold apparel and accessories. The family appears to have been reasonably well off. Shown here is a photo of the infant James at five months — the first whiskey man for whom I have found a baby picture.
Educated in the local Kentucky schools, Rogers moved to Maysville as he matured. He found work there as a clerk in the wholesale grocery establishment of Hamilton Gray, a prominent local businessman who may have been a mentor to young man. A photograph from this period shows Rogers right, posing with a friend, John Pearce. James is dressed as a young sport according to the fashion of the time. Note the slouch hat, string tie, chest pendant and pointed leather shoes. Alcohol almost always was a staple commodity of a grocery like Gray’s. Accounted a bright young “comer,” Rogers likely was learning about whiskey and its profitability.
Although Mason County was not one of the early distilling centers of Kentucky, the late 1870s and early 1880s saw a flurry of activity in what became the Seventh Revenue District. Among the whiskey-making facilities created there were the H.E. Pogue Distilllery in 1876 [see post on Pogue, Nov. 1, 2015], John B. Farrow & Son, 1881, and Poyntz Brothers, 1881. Meanwhile T. W. Wheatley had constructed a distillery in the on Blue Run Pike near the Ohio River.
Having accumulated sufficient capital, in 1879 Rogers bought Wheatley’s plant and moved it to a site on the Germantown Pike about a mile north of the Maysville Courthouse. The area was known to locals as “The Devil’s Backbone,” a ridge 764 feet in elevation that offered views of the river as the Ohio made a very sharp bend. Presumably the Devil had extreme curvature of the spine.
Rogers was about 34 years old when he bought Wheatley’s plant. By that time at age 28 he had married Lida Clarke, a local Maysville woman, 21. At the time of the distillery purchase the couple already had three children, John, Florence, Sophia, and a fourth, Lida, on the way. This suggests that growing family responsibilities may have occasioned Roger’s determination to strike out on his own.
Rogers wasted no time in expanding the distillery, shown below. By the mid-1880s the facility had a mashing capacity of 190 bushels a day and a new warehouse capable of holding 5,000 barrels of aging whiskey. Insurance underwriter records indicate that the distillery was of frame construction with a metal or slate roof. The property also contained cattle pens 280 feet southeast of the still. The warehouse stood 50 feet south of the still.
Rogers featured three brands, “Belle of Maysville,” “Old Time” and “Limestone,” the original name of Maysville. It was his flagship label. The owner trademarked only Limestone, registering the name in 1884. It was renewed in 1913. For the most part Rogers bottled his whiskey in plain glass containers ranging in size from half pint flasks, below left, to quarts, right. They bore paper labels of varying designs.
Unlike distillers who sold their whiskey to liquor dealers for bottling and labeling, Rogers courted a wholesale trade, selling to saloons, restaurants and hotels in Maysville and beyond. As was traditional with such distillers, Rogers provided customers with shot glasses that advertised the brand and his name. They also carried the slogan: “Notice the Quality & Age.” Those glasses also carried marks designating the number of shots, a feature designed to assist bartenders in measuring out the whiskey.
Rogers was active in Maysville’s fraternal organizations, with his primaryfocus on a Masonic affiliate known as the Knights Templar, full name “The United Religious, Military and Masonic Orders of the Temple and of St John of Jerusalem, Palestine, Rhodes and Malta.” Members addressed each other as “Sir Knight” and wore garb similar to that shown here. Pledged to protect and defend Christianity, Templars primarily engaged in charitable work in the community. Considered by the local press among “the successful businessmen of the city” and “a prominent citizen,” Rogers had risen considerably in Maysville by making good whiskey.
Energetic in broadening the customer base for his liquor, Rogers was on a June 1890 trip to Southern cities developing new markets when he was stricken with a case of bloody dysentery, known in those days as “flux.” In an age without antibiotics the condition could be fatal. Upon returning home, the doctors sent him to bed immediately but after rallying briefly Rogers steadily worsened. Said the Maysville Evening Bulletin: “The disease had gained such a strong hold that the most faithful nursing and the best medical skill failed to check its progress and the patient sank steadily….”
Rogers died on June 23, 1890, only 47 years old. He left behind his widow and four minor children. After ceremonies conducted by his fellow Knights Templar, he was buried in Maysville Cemetery. His entire estate including the distillery was left to his widow, Lida. Although he would never be accorded the recognition granted to some of his whiskey-making Kentucky colleagues, as will be described in Part Two, J.H. Rogers had founded a distillery that would survive four decades.
Note: Thanks go to Cay Camness, Marla Toncray, and the Kentucky Gateway Museum Center in Maysville for their assistance in providing from their archives photos and other materials important to completing this post and the post that follows. The center has a wealth of information regarding the history of Maysville, Mason County, and their inhabitants.
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