Steuben County to Chicago: The Trek of the Van Housens

Born in Steuben County New York in 1826, by the time he was six years old John Henry Van Housen had witnessed his father, Joseph, die at 28 years old; watched as his mother, Katherine, soon remarried, and he himself sent alone to live with a large family of her relatives.  Shown here in maturity,  Van Housen overcame his beginnings to found a wine and liquor business hailed as “one of the largest and most complete establishments in the wholesale trade” in America. He named it the Steuben County Wine Company, an enterprise he eventually located 600 miles west in Chicago.  

Despite growing up without his parents, young Van Housen early exhibited intelligence and a hard working persona.  After receiving a basic public education in  the schools of Central New York, he left his studies at about 17 to work in dry good store in Bath, New York. Four years later at 21 he was made a partner.  Van Housen continued in that line until 1860 when he left to work in a Bath wine and liquor business.   

That move may have been occasioned by his marriage in January 1854 to Charlottte A. Torrey of Naples, New York.  They would have three sons in rapid succession, Beach Torrey (B.T.), Harry L., and Charles, the latter who died in infancy.  After nine years working in the Bath liquor store, Van Housen struck out on his own in 1869, establishing a wine and liquor house he called “The Steuben County Wine Company.”  

By 1872, Van Housen was finding Bath too small for his ambition.  Moreover, during the 1860s the town had lost population.  Looking for a larger customer base for his enterprise, he chose Jackson, Michigan, a town five times larger than Bath and moved the Steuben County Wine Company there. 

At the time Jackson was doing well economically, with several railroad connections linking it to markets all over the Midwest. The family stayed five years but Van Housen’s vision of his future imagined even wider possibilities.  Looking further west he saw Chicago, then in the midst of boom years.  Uprooting Charlotte and their two boys who now were reaching maturity, Van Housen moved the family to The Windy City in 1876.

There Van Housen incorporated his Steuben County Wine Company at $200,000, installing his two sons as incorporators, stockholders, employees, and eventually as executives.  Beach became secretary and Harry, treasurer.  The company initially was established at 220 Wabash Avenue, moving between 1878 and 1911 to successive locations on Madison Street, the busy Chicago thoroughfare shown here.  With growing success the Van Housens needed more space, finally settling into large quarters at 227-229 West Madison..

Van Housen was wholesaling his alcoholic products in ceramic jugs of varying sizes from a single gallon to three gallons.  Those would be distributed by his saloon, hotel and restaurant customers into smaller containers and then poured over the bar into glasses.  Shown above are two jugs bearing the earlier 212 Madison Street address and below are jugs from the West Madison Street headquarters.

The company issued only limited whiskey brands, chiefly bearing the name of the German general who helped Washington train his Revolutionary War troops:  Baron Friedrich Wilhelm August Heinrich Ferdinand von Steuben. For obvious reasons he is usually just referred to as Baron von Steuben.  Shown below is “Old Steuben Rye” in half-pint and pint flasks. 

Van Housen also marketed a highly alcoholic “Steuben Celery Bitters,” advertised on a colorful trade card showing a youngster dressed in a military uniform carrying a lighted pipe.  Although it is a puzzling image, it is very like  figures found on German beer steins of the time.  The message on the back is equally perplexing.  It begins by extolling the nostrum’s medicinal qualities:  “A sure cure for Dyspepsia, Indigestion, Sleeplessness, Sick Headache and General Nervous Disability, affording immediate relief, and if its use is continued a permanent cure guaranteed by the proprietor.”  That proprietor (one assumes Van Housen) then suggests that wine merchants sell his Celery Bitters as a mixer for drinks, for just plain drinking and for soups because “it imparts a delightful flavor and is a wonderful Nervine.”

Van Housen rapidly gained a reputation as a leader in Chicago and throughout Illinois as a result of his strong support for domestic wines and whiskeys against imported goods.  His liquor house carried only American made products and he publicly preached the ascendancy of domestic alcoholic beverages.  Noted a biographer:   “The prediction made by Mr. Van Housen years ago, that, owing to the advantage of the American climate,…America would excel the world in the manufacture of pure wines, brandies, champagne and whiskey, has been verified and the public now realize that that the American product, in every respect, is as good as the foreign and of purer quality.”

Van Housen’s foresight, along with his personal qualities, gained him a reputation  as one of the leading businessmen of Chicago, extolled in print for his “…native sagacity, sound business judgment and tireless energy, coupled with a frank, genial and generous temperament that wins him many friends.”   Van Housen’s  trek across America had ended in success.

As he aged, Van Housen apparently moved into another profession, becoming known as a contractor and builder in Chicago.  The liquor house was turned over to Beach and Harry. It was reported that their father’s “…remarkable success in business is attributable, in part, to the efficient cooperation of his two sons, who are actively associated with him in management.”  By 1911 Beach was heading the company as its president and Harry was secretary.  The company added a new brand to its list of whiskeys called “Beach Run,”  trademarking the name in 1905.

With advancing age, Van Housen, with wife Sarah, retired to the family home, shown here, and watched helplessly as National Prohibition shut down the Steuben County Wine Company he so carefully had nurtured and taken cross country.  Van Housen died at age 81 in May 1936 and was buried at the family burial site in Chicago’s Mount Hope Cemetery. Charlotte would join him there five years later.

John Henry Van Housen lived long enough to have the satisfaction of seeing National Prohibition repealed.  He had followed his vision across 600 miles and four states to foster American wines, liquors and whiskey, achieving resounding success and personal recognition.  Now, after a 14 year hiatus and Repeal,  made in the USA libations once again were flowing. Van Housen must have been proud.

Note:  Among a number of sources for this article, by far the most important was “Encyclopedia of Illinois, Cook County Edition (Vol. II),” by Dr. Newton Bateman and Paul Selby, Munsell Publishing, Chicago, 1905.