James Kelly—Out of the Shadows, Into the Spotlight

Pictured here, James B. Kelly, a New York City liquor dealer, seemingly lived much of his life in the shadows, perhaps avoiding federal authorities.  By giving his name to an alcoholic  “medicinal” bitters called “Kelly’s Old Cabin” —  an empty bottle that sold for $45,360 not long ago — Kelly has drawn renewed interest.  Research into his life reveals a few details.

Apparently born and educated in New York City, Kelly in 1863 abruptly left The Big Apple for St. Louis, Missouri.  This move was contemporaneous with the implementation of Civil War conscription.  Kelly’s service record indicates that as an unmarried male of about 24 years old, he was in immediate danger of being drafted into the Union Army.   Conscription in New York sparked a massive riot.  In July 1863, a mob wrecked the main recruiting station. For three days angry men marched through the city, destroying buildings, factories, streetcar lines, and homes.  Dozens were killed before order was restored.  My surmise is that Kelly had headed out to Missouri where the draft was being indifferently enforced.

In St. Louis, Kelly teamed up with a liquor dealer and inventor named John Garnhart, 39.  Despite the age difference, the two men seem to have bonded and soon Garnhart changed the name of his liquor house to Garnhardt & Kelly.  Both men were recorded in St. Louis business directories as living in the posh Lindell House, at the time the largest hotel in America.

Opened in 1863, the Lindell House hotel, shown here, was seven stories and boasted 500 rooms.  The St. Louis Democrat wrote:  “If a boarder wishes to through the wide and lofty corridors before breakfast, he may travel one and a quarter miles without going over the same floor twice.”   When a fire broke out about 8 p.m. on March  30, 1867, records indicate that both men were living there, a sure sign of affluence. 

 

Guests initially ignored the flames, thinking that they were safe within the strong, elegant building surrounding them.  For a time eating, drinking and leisure activities went on.  As the fire progressed, shown above, all the inhabitants were evacuated into the cold Missouri night.  Not a single life was lost.  The next day the Lindell House was a smoking ruins with the loss equivalent to $25 million dollars.  Kelly and Garnhart subsequently moved to another St. Louis showplace, the equally luxurious Planter’s Hotel.

During this period the two men were working together to create an intoxicating beverage known as bitters.  Sold as a “medicinal” rather than as liquor the beverage was alcohol infused with botanicals and claimed to have curative properties. Liquor dealers like Garnhart and Kelly had moved to merchandising bitters because of the high war taxes levied by the Lincoln Administration on whiskey.  Bitters, sold as medicine, were not similarly taxed. 

Past accounts of this partnership often have assumed that it was Kelly who came up with the recipe for the bitters.  Although I have been unable to find proof of that claim, it is possible that the New Yorker had prior experience with such nostrums, perhaps through working in a pharmacy.  When they mutually had agreed on the ingredients, the partners spared no hyperbole in advertising the curative properties of their concoction.  Shown here, a label touts their bitters as “The Greatest Discovery of the Age” and a remedy for almost any ailment, large or small.

 

If the origin of the bitters recipe is uncertain, the log cabin bottle in which it was marketed is not.  In addition to selling whiskey, Garnhart was a designer and inventor.  His name is on the patent for the log cabin-shaped bottle in which the bitters were sold.  My surmise is that attractive decorations on the wooden cases in which it was sold also were the work of the talented Garnhardt.

 

Sold initially as “Old Cabin Bitters,” the nostrum after a month was renamed “Kelly’s Old Cabin Bitters.”  About the same time, Kelly’s name was removed from the St. Louis liquor house. Directories list him simply as a salesman for Garnhardt.  My assumption is that Kelly now was dividing his time between St. Louis and New York City, creating a market for the bitters in the East. Evidence suggests that the bottles were made at the Whitney Glass Works in Glassboro, New Jersey.  Reputedly bottled both in New York and St. Louis, Kelly bitters containers have been found throughout the United States including Colorado, Montana, and Texas.

As the Civil War dragged on, wartime high taxes on liquor began to be applied to bitters.  The law was ambiguous.  Those selling bitters and other alcoholic compounds put up and sold as medicine were not required to pay the special tax.  Persons selling bitters or other alcoholic compounds “put up and stamped as rectified spirits” were taxed.  Kelly’s Old Cabin Bitters were considered in the latter category and in 1864 Kelly began to affix his own government-approved stamp, one carrying a his portrait, shown here.   One writer has suggested that the stamps were fraudulent, but Federal records show tax receipts of $5,800 from Garnhart & Kelly.

But cheating was in the air.  Following the Civil War the notorious “Whiskey Ring” was taking shape in St. Louis in 1871 to defraud the U.S. Government.  The scam worked this way:  Crooked officials would attest that distillers and rectifiers had paid all their taxes when they actually had paid about 60% of what they owed the government, much of the money going as bribes.  The residual 40% stayed in the participants’ pockets.  

Garnhart apparently was one of the miscreants, having kept an interest in his St. Louis liquor house even after moving with his family to Madison, Wisconsin.  His liquor business now was being run by his co-owners.  The fraud in St. Louis got particular attention from Federal authorities. In 1873 a trap was set and sprung.  Garnhart’s company was among those where barrels of illicit whiskey and office ledgers were seized.  Criminal indictments followed.  Garnhart’s partners were among those sent to jail.  His death at 50 years old in 1874 likely prevented Garnhart from doing prison time.  Meanwhile in New York City John Kelly was left untouched, apparently having faded into the shadows.

Although Kelly did not face federal indictment, sales of Kelly’s Old Cabin Bitters was shut down in 1874.  Was it engendered by the breaking of the Whiskey Ring, Garnhart’s death, or yet another cause?  There is no clear answer.  As a result of the earlier name being attached to the Garnhart log cabin bottle for only about a month, a bottle of “Old Cabin Bitters,” (No “Kelly”) shown here, sold not long ago for $45,360 at American Bottle Auctions, based in Sacramento.  The buyer has not been disclosed.

Even though bottles of the subsequent “Kelly’s Old Cabin Bitters” were distributed for approximately a decade, they too command substantial prices.  The guru of American bitters bottles, Ferd Meyer, notes that while these containers are not considered extremely rare, they “aren’t too shabby either, regularly bringing $2,500 to $5,000 or more for extreme colors.”  Shown here are Kelly log cabin bottles in amber, light green, and dark green.   

Following his death in Garnhart’s body was returned from Madison to St. Louis where he was interred in Bellefontaine Cemetery in what is described as the Garnhart “family tomb.”  Following a long illness, his widow, Roberta, joined him there after her death in 1884.  Despite a lengthy search I have been unable to determine what happened to James Kelly after 1874 or his ultimate place of interment. He has faded into the mists of time.  I hope some sharp eyed Kelly relative will see this post and help fill in the gaps.

Note:  This post was gathered from a variety of sources.  Key among them were St. Louis directories.  Several of the images shown here are from “The Bertrand Bottles – A Study of 19th-Century Glass and Ceramic Containers” by Ronald R. Switzer, 1974, published by the National Park Service.  The Bertrand was a steamboat that sank on the Missouri River in 1865 with its cargo and was excavated in 1968.  My earlier post on John Garnhart may be found on this website at July 20, 2015.