In the Winter of 1873, a convicted murderer languished inside New York City’s well named prison, “The Tombs,” contemplating his hanging scheduled for February 28. Eight years later this same man bought a controlling interest in an elite Manhattan hotel called the Hoffman House, made it famous for its barroom, and thereby generated whiskey brands across America. His name was Edward S. Stokes and his story is the stuff of novels.
Edward was born in Philadelphia on April 27, 1840, the son of Nancy Stiles and Edward H. Stokes, a wealthy New York cloth manufacturer who retired at an early age and moved to Pennsylvania. He was able to give his son an excellent education and when the boy showed strong signs of business acumen, a start in business, manufacturing and selling cheese.
Cheese proved to be just an appetizer. By the time Stokes was 25 he was operating an oil refinery in Brooklyn. This brought him in close contact with Jim Fisk, the personification of a late 19th Century “robber baron.” Fisk gained wealth and notoriety manipulating gold and railroad stocks on Wall Street. Never shy about broadcasting his money, Fisk strolled Manhattan streets in elaborate uniforms with perfumed hair, waxed mustache, and fingers adorned with diamonds.
Fisk saw the potential in Stokes and became a “silent partner” in the oil business. Together they had a secret arrangement to discount refinery freight charges by the Erie Railroad, a line Fisk controlled. Their collaboration foundered in the late 1860s as the two men vied for the affections of the same woman, femme fatale Helen Josephine “Josie” Mansfield.
Shown here, Josie was living in New York after she divorced her husband. Impoverished and unable to find work, she frequented the hospitality of a friend who ran a brothel on 34th Street. There she met Fisk, whose young wife is said to have tolerated his extramarital affairs. Smitten with Josie, Fisk showered her with money and gifts, buying her an elegant brownstone at 18 West 24th Street. Josie also had attracted the attention of Stokes who, in contrast to the portly middle-aged Fisk, was slender, young, handsome and single.
Catching wind of this competitor, Fisk arranged to have Stokes arrested for allegedly embezzling funds from the refinery. He also seized the refinery and obtained injunctions to prevent Stokes and his mother, who owned the site, from entering the premises. The charges were dismissed and Stokes was later awarded $10,000 compensation, but was still deeply angry. He threatened to publish Fisk’s love letters to Josie unless he was paid substantially more. The older man screamed “blackmail,” obtained an injunction to prevent publication, and arranged a New York grand jury indictment of Stokes and Josie. By now thoroughly estranged from Fisk, Josie countersued claiming libel. Stokes, now her lover, was her principal witness. The case was heard on January 6, 1872.
The date proved to be a fateful one. That evening as Fisk entered Grand Central Hotel and began to ascend the stairs, he met Stokes coming down. Stokes later claimed that Fisk drew a pistol and that believing Fisk intended to kill him, he drew his own pistol and shot Fisk twice. One bullet passed through Fisk’s arm and the other penetrated his abdomen, causing a mortal wound. The tycoon died at 10:45 a. m. the following day. The killing made front page news all over America.
Three trials ensued. When a gun was found in Fisk’s vicinity, a first trial ended in a hung jury, seven to five for conviction. Six months later a second jury found Stokes guilty of first degree murder and he was sentenced to be hanged. As he waited on death row, upon a petition by his family the New York Court of Appeals granted Stokes a stay of execution and a new trial. This time, with additional evidence produced by the defense, Stokes was found guilty only of manslaughter in the third degree. The judge, critical of the jury verdict, said to Stokes: “The sentence of the Court is that you be imprisoned in the State Prison at Sing Sing at hard labor for the term of four years.”
Stokes was released from prison in 1876 after serving three years. Still only 36 years old, he embarked on an entirely new career. Before his incarceration, he had lived in the Hoffman House Hotel, located at the corner of Twenty-fifth Street and Broadway. The proprietor had befriended Stokes during his trial and after his release sold him a controlling interest in the hotel. For Stokes it was a new beginning. He made the most of it, building a national reputation around the hotel barroom.
Under Stokes guidance, the Hoffman House became famous for its paintings and sculptures, many displaying the nude female body. Of those the most renowned was a large oil painting entitled “Nymphs and Satyr” by William-Adolphe Bouguereau. First exhibited at the 1873 Paris Salon, it depicts three starkly nude young females cavorting around a goat-like satyr. As shown right in the illustration below, Stokes made it the centerpiece of the Hoffman House barroom.
In June 1877, Bougereau wrote Stokes imploring him to send the painting back to be shown at the 1878 Paris Exposition as the artist considered it “the most notable feature of my future exhibitions.” There is no indication Stokes complied. The painting had become a valuable tourist attraction. According to one account: “People lined up and crowds gathered to catch a glimpse of the titillating image. Magazines covered the story. The bar room painting set a trend, as hotels and bars in Chicago and San Francisco followed suit, exhibiting their own classical nudes.”
Recognizing that he had hit on a winning strategy, Stokes surrounded this prize with other European artworks with an emphasis on nudity. Shown above left is a statue entitled “Pan and Bachanti” by Schlessinger, a first prize winner at the 1878 Paris show. It can be glimpsed at the back of the barroom illustration. Another was a statue from the 1881 Exposition celebrating “Eve,” obviously before the unpleasantness over an apple.
Stokes included a number of those artworks in an 1885 brochure that bore his name. The document includes this description of the by now-famous Hoffman House Bar: “A few steps carry us to the threshold and there for a moment a visitor may pause, as he contemplates the magnificence of an establishment the praises of which have been sung in the Old World and the New. A place that but for its convivial suggestiveness and atmosphere of good fellowship, might be mistaken for a cabinet of curiousities or a boudoir of art.”
The illustration below shows the extent of the barroom, said to be a place of “gathering of New York’s socialites, actors, businessmen, and other wealthy men.” (Women were not allowed.) Edward Stokes, a man who once had languished on “death row” had now achieved the pinnacle of recognition in “The Big Apple.”
Not only did Hoffman House set a trend for displaying classical nudes in U.S. drinking establishments, brands of whiskey that referenced the famous hotel proliferated across America. Three were in New York City. The most prominent was Cook & Bernheimer Co., a New York liquor wholesaler that distributed its whiskey nationally from 1863 until 1917. Boasting branch offices from coast to coast, this firm may have had a licensing agreement with Stokes. Two other Gotham houses marketed their own brands. Phelan and Duval, founded in 1870 by James J. Phalen and George Duval featured a whiskey they called “The Hoffman Special.” The I. Solomon Company featured “The Famous Hoffman House Pure Rye.”
In the hinterland other liquor purveyors were quick to assume the Hoffman House mantle. The most aggressive of these was the Hamburger Company of Chicago. It not only captured the the hotel name but, as shown below, featured the Bougereau painting in its advertising and labels.
In Cincinnati, H. F. Corbin used the hotel name on its whiskey jugs large and small. Nearby in Cincinnati, Isaac Michelson & Bro. liquor house featured a whiskey they called “Hoffman House Bouquet.” An associated company in Austin, Texas, run by a third Michelson brother, advertised the same brand as well as Hoffman House Cigars. Finally, in Milwaukee, Herman Toser, possibly afraid of trademark infringement, marketed Hoffmann (extra “n”) House Whiskey.
I can find no evidence that Stokes ever challenged the use of the Hoffman House name on any of these products. He may well have believed that they helped publicize his New York hotel and drew customers to its doors. For all his success as a hotel owner, Stokes became known for his bad temper. He often quarreled with business associates and relatives alike, even resorting to court action against individuals who had helped him during and after his incarceration.
Stokes died in New York City in November 1901 at age 60 and was buried at Greenwood Cemetery in Brooklyn. Meanwhile Josie Mansfield, having broken off her affair with Stokes, decamped to Europe, married again and was divorced four years later. She died of stomach cancer in Paris in 1931 at the age of 83 and is buried in a Parisian cemetery next to her mother.
Notes: This post was compiled from a number of online sources, including Wikipedia entries on Stokes, Fisk and Mansfield. A detailed account of Stokes shooting Fisk was provided from a 1910 story by Thomas Duke in his “Celebrated Criminal Cases of America.” Longer accounts of three whiskey men who issued Hoffman House labels may be found elsewhere on this website: Cook & Bernheimer, November 7, 2016; Michelson Bros., April 11, 2015; and Herman Toser, January 1, 2014.
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