How Distilling Carved a Society from a Wilderness

 Foreword:  Much of the history of the early American whiskey trade is being brought to light by initiatives from the nation’s expanding distilling industry.  I recently became aware of Cincinnati Distilling, a company that has reconstructed the history of the Waldschmidt-Kugler family, beginning in the aftermath of the Revolutionary War, whose premises it now occupies.  Drawing on that resource  and adding supplemental information, this post presents 75 years of early American development in which distilling played a major role.

Christian Waldschmidt, a veteran of the Revolutionary War with the mind of a pioneer, in 1794 crossed the Allegheny Mountains and traveled down the Ohio River on a flatboat until he reached the mouth of the Little Miami River where a friend had a primitive frontier tavern.  Stopping there he saw the possibilities for development.  Proceeding to near present day Cincinnati, Waldschmidt bought 1,240 acres of land.

Joined by 20 other families, Waldschmidt directed the settlers at clearing the trees to  build a church, school, general store, grist mill, saw mill, woolen mill, blacksmith shop, and the first paper mill in Ohio.  Important among the enterprises was a distillery, owned and operated by Waldschmidt. He called the community “New Germany” and built an impressive stone home, below, in which to house his growing family.

Enter Mathias Kugler who reached the settlement at age 17 in 1874, barefoot in a rowboat.  Born in hard-scrabble surroundings, Mathias’ only hat blew off down river as the boy waded ashore.  Waldschmidt hired him as a mill hand and was unhappy when not long after Mathias began to court his eldest daughter, Katherine. Within a year they were married.  The family disapproved of her wedding a simple mill worker.  They seriously had underestimated their new son-in-law.

Over the next 16 years Waldschmidt built a business empire in the Southwestern Ohio wilderness of astounding proportions.  When he died in 1814 during a flu epidemic, he was accounted one of the richest men in Ohio.  Waldschmidt had lived to be 59 years and 7 days old, as accounted by his marker in a family graveyard.  He left no will and his sons proved unable or unwilling  to take over their father’s many enterprises.  In stepped Mathias Kugler.  Somehow he had accrued the resources necessary to own and manage the properties.

Mathias rapidly built on the success of his father-in law, including continuing emphasis on a distillery.  A rustic facility, likely similar to the one shown above, it produced a cash flow that helped facilitate the other enterprises in New Germany.  Moreover, it assisted area farmers by the constant need for grain to mash and distill.  The first 14 years of Mathias’ direction continued the community’s  growth until 1828 when fire destroyed many of the enterprises, including the distillery, but spared the prosperous paper mill.

By this time Mathias’ and Katherine’s son, John, had reached maturity and became a full partner in the family business.  The Kuglers had sufficient funds to rebuild after the fire.  They also expand operations into the nearby town of Milford, Ohio, buying a bankrupt mill, a tannery and a cobbler’s shop.  More important they purchased a Milford distillery, shown here, to augment their newly rebuilt New Germany plant.   As nearby Cincinnati developed, so did  the market for their whiskey.

The next few years found the Kuglers flourishing.  John moved to Milford with his wife, Matilda, to look after the properties there. The Kuglers were also involved with the meat packing industry.  John raised pigs on his farms outside Milford, riding into town frequently to supervise the shops and whiskey-making.  He eventually was appointed postmaster and a trustee of Milford.  Meanwhile Mathias had become a major stockholder and director of the Little Miami Railroad.

In 1843, John built a second distillery in Milford at 220 Mill Street.  It consumed so much corn that he built a warehouse next door, shown here.  Five years later the complex burned down, believed to be arson.  Undeterred, John quickly rebuilt, indicating how important whiskey was to the Kuglers. Leaving John to pilot the many family businesses, Mathias died in 1854 and was buried in the Waldschmidt family cemetery.  His monument is shown below.

With the outbreak of the Civil War, Southern Ohio was a hotbed of Confederate sympathizers.  The Lincoln government was very interested in establishing a military presence in the vicinity.  A strong Unionist, John permitted Ohio troops use a major portion of the New Germany settlement as a training grounds and camp.  The installation became known as Camp Dennison, large enough to house 12,000 troops at a given time.

The war also meant a boom time for Kugler distilling.  By 1862 distilling capacity reached a peak, producing 3,814 barrels of whiskey annually.  Responding to the demand, John added a two-story stone building to the Milford complex. The bottom floor provided additional space for storing and aging whiskey; the top floor was a cooperage where the barrels were made.  The buildings were virtually across the street from the Kugler mansion home, shown below, that John commissioned to house his family. 

In January 1868, John died and was buried in the Milford Cemetery. His grave is marked by a large obelisk.  Well known throughout Southern Ohio for his many businesses and numerous land holdings, at his death this Kugler was accounted the wealthiest man in Claremont County.  With his passing, the business empire that Waldschmidt and the Kuglers had built over almost 75 years came to an abrupt halt.  With no real plan for succession, virtually all operations, including the distilleries, stopped.  Dozens lost their jobs and Milford underwent a severe depression.  Only the paper mill, run by a nephew, survived for a few more years.

Unlike inspiring pioneer stories that have been lost in the mists of time, the Waldschmidt-Kugler saga has been kept alive by two developments.  First, at what is now known as Camp Dennison, Ohio, the Ohio Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution own and maintain a museum in the stone Waldschmidt homestead, conducting docent-led tours of the house and grounds.  The women have installed a plaque on the building that briefly recounts the history of the site. Unfortunately, it carries no mention of the distilleries.

That omission was filled by the second development.  The Waldschmidt home is only a 2.5 mile trip to Milford where an outfit called Cincinnati Distilling has preserved the Kugler Mansion as part of its whiskey-making complex.  It also has documented the family’s distilling history in detail that made possible this post.  Under the general name of “Milcroft” it markets a variety of whiskeys, including “Milford Bourbon” and “Small Batch American Whiskey.” the latter’s label depicting the Kugler homestead.

Notes:  This post draws heavily on information provided by the Cincinnati Distillery Company online site, supplemented by newspaper articles and the “find a grave” website.  Additionally, this website just passed 400 in people who regularly follow it and are notified about a new post.  I am grateful to them for their patronage.