John Connolly — How a “Home Boy” Built Elmira, N.Y.

Of the liquor dealers featured on this website, more than a few were important for advancing their ciies economically, socially or culturally.   Born in Elmira, Chemung County, New York, in 1850 John M. Connelly, who lived there throughout his life, was a force in his home town on all three fronts.  At  his death in 1929, the local newspaper hailed Connelly this way:  “…His vision was broad and he found his greatest pleasure in doing for his fellows.  He loved Elmira and its people, and in his time and efficient way, did much to make it the fine city it is today.”

Connelly was the son of  Margaret O’Brien and Cornelius Connelly, immigrants from Ireland during the Great Potato Famine.  The couple settled initially in Syracuse, New York, moving to Elmira prior to 1850.  Cornelius was a skilled stone mason, said to have been the foreman on the construction of major Elmira buildings.   The family was far from wealthy, however; the father was idled through the five month frigid winters of northern New York.

The parents seem to have recognized the unusual intelligence and drive of their son and made it possible for him to progress beyond his elementary education and graduate to the Elmira Academy, shown here.  This was a secondary school where Connelly concentrated on business-oriented courses.  Barely a year after leaving school, the youth had entered on his lifelong career in the liquor trade.

Connelly’s first employment was working for C. W. Skinner, who advertised himself as “Wholesale Wine and Liquor Merchant.”  With partners Skinner had established his liquor house in 1868, located at Nos. 2 and 3 Opera House Block on Elmira’s Carroll Street, shown here.  Eventually Skinner became the sole proprietor and hired Connelly who worked for him for the ensuing nine years.  One observer commented that during that period, the youth “thoroughly mastered the business in every department and enjoyed to an unusual degree the confidence and trust of his employer.”

When Skinner died in 1890, Connelly was chosen one of that whiskey man’s executors and asked to manage the business during probate.  The following May he was allowed to buy the company, operating from the same address but changing the name of the enterprise to his own.  Connolly also stepped up sales efforts, hiring traveling salesmen to expand the liquor house markets beyond Elmira and Chemung County to other parts of New York and into Pennsylvania.Commented one biographer:  “Under his capable management the business has increased and annually renders him a good income.”

Not a distiller but a “rectifier,” Connelly was blending whiskeys received from regional distilleries by rail and marketing the results under his own name.  He packaged those liquors in distinctive ceramic jugs.  As shown above, some containers simply had his name slanted along the front.  They were the creation of the Farrington ceramic works, a local Elmira pottery.  As shown below, Connelly also made use of other jugs to market his whiskey to wholesale customers in saloons, hotels and restaurants within his marketing area.

The same year Connelly acquired the liquor house, he also married.  His bride was Catherine Sheehan, a woman 13 years younger and only 18 at the time of their nuptials.  She was the daughter of Peter and Catherine Sheehan, both immigrants from Ireland.  Her father was listed in the 1870 census as a laborer.  The mother of their four children, Catherine, Gerald, Harold and Helen, Catherine proved to be an able helpmate and achieved her own reputation in Elmira for her civic work.

As the 1890s progressed, Connelly grew in his reputation as canny  businessman in the estimation of his peers in Elmira.  As a result when a Chamber of Commerce was created in the city he was chosen as its founding chairman.  Working out of the building shown here, he would hold the office for a decade or more, during which he was credited with bringing new industry and employment to Elmira, helping to swell its population.  

Kennedy hydrant

Among the industries attributed to Connolly’s leadership was the Kennedy Valve Corp. that located in Elmira in 1905 and is still in business there today, having provided employment for thousands of workers for more than 119 years. The company  is one of the world’s largest manufacturers of products for waterworks distribution, potable and wastewater treatment and fire protection.  Kennedy Corp. is most famous for its fire hydrants found worldwide.  

Hilliard factory

Also established in Elmira in 1905 with Connolly’s leadership and still operating there is the Hilliard Corporation, a manufacturer of filters, brakes, clutches and starters for industrial and commercial uses and for consumer equipment.  Its work requires an employee force of skilled machinists, as shown here.  Connolly’s obituary noted:  “The impetus given Elmira’s industrial and commercial life at that time is felt to this day.”   The sentiment is equally valid in 2024.

Majestic Theater

Connolly also played a role in the cultural life of his native city, fostering the opening of a state-of-the-art theater to present live performances.  Asked to speak at the opening of the Mozart Theater on East Market Street, Connelly, as Chamber president, told the assembly:  “The year 1908…the beginning of a new era in Elmira history.  The dream of a bigger, better and busier city is fast being realized.”  Later he was part of a 1922 committee that acted in an advisory capacity when St. Joseph’s Hospital began a building program to construct a new surgical center.

Meanwhile, the liquor dealer’s wife, Catherine, was active on behalf of a project known as “Federation Farm.”  This was a residential treatment center opened in Elmira in 1917 for children who were under-nourished, anemic, or exposed to tuberculosis.  Funded by private donations raised by Mrs. Connelly and a partner, the farm property, shown here, became a haven for youngsters whose wellbeing was imperiled.  They were removed temporarily from hazardous living conditions while building up their health. 

Forced to shut down his liquor house with the coming of National Prohibition, Connelly, now 70 years old, could occupy himself with his investment portfolio.  He was vice president of the Columbia Gold Milling and Mining Company of Colorado and also had substantial investments in the oil fields of New York and Pennsylvania.  Dying in late May, 1929, as Connelly approached 80 years old, the liquor dealer extraordinaire was buried in Elmira’s St. Peter and Paul Cemetery.  Catherine joined him there 20 years later, dying at the age of 87.

A fitting final word about this local boy who stayed at home to make his city a better place to live and work was provided by an unsigned editorial in the Elmira Star-Gazette:  John M. Connelly was a leader in business, civic and social affairs in Elmira during many active years.  His name is indissolubly connected with numerous enterprises, all of which throve under his leadership, and whether public or private, invariably achieved success.

Note:  This post was composed from a variety of sources available on the Internet.  Principal among them was Connelly’s biography in the 1902 publication “Biographical Record of Chemung County, New York,”  The S.J. Clark Publishing Co., New York & Chicago. and his obituary in the Elmira newspaper of June 1, 1929.  Unfortunately, I have been unable to locate photographs of Connolly or his wife and hope some alert descendant will see this article and provide them.

Adolph Hirschman & a $35,000 Saloon Sign

As a youthful immigrant from Germany, Adolph Hirschman took years and many miles to find his footing on the American business scene.  From New York he ventured to Savannah, Georgia, working for a grocery firm as a traveling salesman.  In 1882, saying farewell to the Sunny South, he headed 1,370 miles north to St. Paul, Minnesota, to open a saloon and liquor store.  Prospering there, Hirschman commissioned a saloon sign with himself as the central figure a picture that not long ago sold at auction for $35,000.

Shown below, the sign was created by a lithographic technique developed in Germany in which images were put on stone plates and subsequently transferred to metal sheets.   The technology swiftly was brought to  America and the Tuscarora Advertising Company.   By 1895 advertisers from all over the United States were sending in orders for metal signs to the Coshocton, Ohio, factory. Among them was one from Hirschman in St. Paul, who knew what he wanted.

Hirschman’s order for a sign likely included a preliminary design.  Entitled “East Meets West,” the 36 by 27 inch picture contained an ad for Hirschman’s flagship brand,  “Henry Hunter Fine Old Rye,” illustrated with a whiskey barrel.  Perhaps more important, two-thirds of the image depicted a cowboy addressing an elegantly outfitted man. Look closely at the latter. Then look at the photo of Hirschman, right.  The proprietor had placed himself on his saloon sign.  As if to leave no doubt, the suitcase at the feet of the figure is marked “A. H. & Co.”

When the sign, virtually pristine in a well-made oak frame, went up for auction several years ago, speculation arose that is was one of a kind.  While possible, I lean to the idea that Hirschman, while not making many copies, funded a few to give his very best customers.  He also made use of the image as his trademark, and featured it on his letterhead.

The man behind this iconic sign was born in March 1852 in Brandenberg, Germany, the son of Phillip and Mary (Caspari) Hirschman.  He was educated in its elementary and secondary schools.  While still in his adolescence, his mother died. When Adolph was 17, his father emigrated with the family to the United States, residing in Troy, New York, and working as a cigar manufacturer.  The youth’s early employment has gone unrecorded, but most likely he was engaged in the mercantile trades.

In 1876 Adolph married Rose Cohen, a New York City resident four years younger than he.  Their only child, Benjamin M., was born the following year.  This growing family may have encouraged Hirschman to look outside New York for employment. In the early 1880s, he moved wife and child to Savannah, Georgia, joining the wholesale grocery firm of Solomon Brothers as a traveling salesman.  

The company dated from 1873, owned by Henry Solomon and his brother, N.E. Solomon, immigrants from England.  Not long after Hirschman’s arrival, the brothers split.  In July 1882 Henry Solomon created a new company with his son, Alexander, as a partner.  Left “high and dry,” N. E. Solomon reached out to Hirschman with a proposition to co-own a wholesale and retail liquor house and saloon.  One catch:  The property was in St. Paul, Minnesota, 1370 miles north of Sunny Savannah in the frigid “North Star State.”  

Nonetheless, Hirschman jumped at the chance to run his own business.  Bundling up Rose and Benjamin, he quickly relocated to St. Paul, where he would live the rest of his life.  Although the details of their financial arrangements remain undisclosed, N.E. Solomon quickly exited the partnership, likely bought out by Hirschman. He now was in sole charge of a liquor house and saloon.  According to one account:  “He proved successful from the first and from small beginnings he has continually enlarged the scope of his operations until he now owns a very extensive business.” 

 

Among Hirschman’s gifts was an artistic eye, manifest in the well designed labels he gave his whiskeys, illustrated here on his “Red Wing Whiskey” label featuring an accurately drawn red wing blackbird.  Hirschman’s flagship brand was “Minnesota Club Whiskey,” available in quart and flask-sized bottles, as shown below.  He does not appear to have trademarked any of his house brands.

Hirschman advertised Minnesota Club widely, citing it as “A particular brand for particular people, to be had at all clubs and first-class buffets.  A trial will convince.”  He also provided the saloons, hotels and restaurants carrying his liquor with several different varieties of back of the bar bottles advertising Minneapolis Club.

 

His largesse to his wholesale customers extended to providing shot glasses and serving trays advertising his brands   At right is a tray that advertises Minnesota Club.  The hunting motif was a common one for Midwest whiskeys.  The tray likely was a products of the Tuscarora Company, noted for manufacturing those items as well as saloon signs.  

Having chosen Minnesota as his home, as he prospered Hirschman became  a major investor in its Mesabi Range Iron mines.  One of four major iron deposits in northern Minnesota, the Mesabi stretches 100 miles.  There the soft ore lay close to the surface to be scooped up from open pit mines.  The whiskey man’s  investments were concentrated at the Mesabi's Canisteo mines in Itasca County.  They proved to be productive from their discovery in 1907 through the 1980s.

The Mesabi iron mines

Hirschman also was active in St. Paul’s civic and social life as a member of the local Masons, the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, the Sons of Hermann (a mutual aid society for German immigrants), Elks, St. Paul Auto Club, Association of Commerce, and the St. Paul Commercial Club.  He also served as vice president of Mount Zion Temple, a prominent local synagogue.

As his son Benjamin came of age, his father took him into the liquor house, first as a traveling salesman and in 1904 as a full partner.  The duo operated their liquor establishment successfully until closed in 1920 by National Prohibition.  Hirschman lived just long enough to see the “dry” law rescinded, dying in 1935.  He was buried in the Mt. Zion Temple Cemetery under the monument shown right.  His widow, Rose, joined him there three years later.

Summing up Hirschman’s career as a “whiskey man,” a biographer wrote: “He has ever manifested…indomitable perseverence, high intelligence and business sagacity.”  Hirschman also has left future generations an image of himself as he apparently would like to be remembered:   in formal dress, debonair, standing in front of his bar — seemingly fulfilling the elegant dreams of an immigrant boy.

Notes:  This post principally was drawn from two biographies of Adolf Hirschman. The first is from “History of St. Paul and Vicinity:  A Chronicle of Progress,” by Henry Anson Castle, 1912.  The second was “Men of Minnesota,”  author unidentified, published by R. L. Polk & Co., St. Paul, 1915.

 

“James” Gioga: Whiskey, Gold, and Sweet Music

The ceramic jug that introduces this post carries a simple message:  “Jas. Gioga, Goldfield, Nev.”  Behind that liquor container is the story of an Italian immigrant who came to America’s shores seeking his fortune, found it in selling whiskey to gold miners, and fathered one of the jazz stars of the 20th Century.  Although details of his life are few, enough information can be cobbled together about Giacinto “James” Gioga to tell an American success story.

Gioga was born in San Guisto, Canavese,  Italy, in March 1877, the son of Pietro and Catherine Bertetti Gioga.  His parents had him christened under the given name of Giocinto. It translates to Hyacinth, the name of a male saint of the 16th century, known as the patron saint of weightlifters and anyone in danger of drowning.  The boy grew up in San Guisto, shown here,  a picturesque small town near Turin in Northern Italy.

When Gioga was 17, seeking his fortune outside of his native land, the youth emigrated to the United States.  In November 1899 he embarked on the immigrant ship, SS La Bretagne.  Shown here, the La Bretagne was launched in September 1885, a ship built to serve a France to New York ocean route. It provided accommodations for 390 first-class, 65 second-class, and 600 third-class passengers.  Gioga was among the 600 in third class.

 

Landing in New York, Gioga wasted little time before heading to the American West, in the process anglicizing his given name to “James.”  His first stop was in Canon City, Colorado.  Centrally located in the state and known as the “Crossroads of Colorado,” this small city of about 4,000 was not a typical Western boom town.  It sits on the Arkansas River and abuts the Royal Gorge, cut by the river.  Although both oil and gold had been found in the vicinity the discoveries had led to modest growth but not the explosive populations being experienced in other Colorado mining towns.

What drew Gioga to this location is unknown.  He may have had Italian friends or relatives living there.  As a newly arrived immigrant, speaking little if any English, he must have been given a “hand up” the economic ladder.   Given Gioga’s future in the liquor and grocery trade, it would appear that he went to work in a local Canon City store and found his calling.

 

Now in his early 20’s, Gioga liked what he found in America.  Determined to settle here the immigrant reached back to San Guisto to the sweetheart of his youth, Rosa Galetto, asking her to join him in America — and marry.  Rosa, five years younger than “James,” endured the ocean crossing and stage coach journey. The two were wed in a Colorado ceremony.  In rapid fashion two sons were born from their union, Peter in 1903 and Bob in 1905,  the latter destined to become a well-known American musician. 

After a few months in Canon City, Gioga packed up Rosa and their belongings and headed three states and 870 miles west to Goldfield, Nevada. Goldfield was a true Western boom town, named for deposits of gold discovered near the site in 1902.  By 1904, the Goldfield district was producing 800 tons of gold ore, valued at $2.3 million, 30% of Nevada’s production.  This remarkable strike caused Goldfield to grow rapidly, and it soon became Nevada’s largest city and the Esmerelda County seat with a population of some 20,000. 

Arriving circa 1903, Gioga found a city in the process of explosive change.  The rapid transformation can be seen in the two photographs below. On the left is Goldfield in 1904, two years after its founding.  The muddy street holds hotels, saloons, restaurants and merchantile establishments, all frame buildings thrown up rapidly with little thought for permanence.  By 1906, seen right, the  main drag has been paved. Ramshackle structures were being replaced by brick and mortar buildings.

Gioga initially may have worked in an already establish Goldfield business.  His name did not appear in local directories until 1907.  At that time he is identified as proprietor of a retail liquor establishment, a designation that apparently included both saloons and liquor stores.  Totaling some 57, there was one liquor establishment for every 350 man, woman and child in the county.   Each paid $30 for an annual license to do business.

Despite the competition, Gioga appears to have prospered.  By 1914 he had added a line of groceries to his liquor offerings.  His primary customers were the miners who were swelling the population of the area.  Shown left below are the gold fields with the town in the distance.  Each of the mines employed dozens of workers, right below.  Gioga’s saloon was at the east end of the town, said to be “perfectly suited for thirsty, hot miners and prospectors coming in from the south.”  The young Italian immigrant prospered.

Goldfield miners

Gioga went a step beyond his competition by selling whiskey wholesale to the proliferating saloons in Goldfield and vicinity.  He apparently was receiving supplies by the barrel from distant distilleries through the Tonopah and Goldfield (T&G) Railroad, a line created in 1905 that survived until 1947. He decanted the barrels into ceramic jugs of several gallon capacity that were sold to the saloons dotting the local landscape.  Shown below, Gioga jugs are considered rare by collectors, with only a handful known.  One recently sold at auction for $7,000.

Although Gioga was not an American citizen, his immigrant status was no bar to his voting in local elections or, indeed, running for office.  Only a few years after arriving in Goldfield, he was nominated for the post of trustee, a two year term, under the banner of the Socialist Municipal Party.  Non-Marxist, this political organization was concerned about creating and enhancing local public infrastructure.  (A similar local Socialist Party, for example, controlled Milwaukee’s city hall for three decades.)  I can find no indication how Gioga fared in his electoral bid.

Gioga’s civic interests apparently did not extend to funding of city celebrations. In 1915 Gioga was recorded among local businesses contributing to the annual Goldfields July Fourth festivities, including a fireworks display.  While many local saloons were cited in the press for contributing $25 or more, Gioga chipped in a paltry $5.  He clearly had other priorities.  Registration records from 1917 indicate he spent a considerable sum on a new automobile.

As the decade progressed, growth faltered in Goldfield.   In the 1910 federal census, the town population had declined to 4,838. Among problems at the mines was the increasing cost of pumping salt water out of the pits, making them increasingly uneconomic. By 1912, ore production had dropped sharply. The largest mining company left town in 1919. In 1923, a fire caused by a moonshine still explosion destroyed many of Goldfield’s frame buildings. 

Gioga watched this decline from his saloon and store, also aware of the growing prohibitionary fervor in America.  Having prospered significantly for roughly a  decade in Goldfield, about 1918 he decided to pull out and relocate his family further west in Los Angeles.  Subsequent directories found him living  there with wife Rosa and their two sons in a modern home in what appears to be a gated community, shown below.  Although still a relatively young man, Gioga does not appear to have opened a saloon in the City of Angels. 

 

Now the spotlight shifts to the Gioga’s younger son, Bob, whose musical talent would bring him to the pinnacle of the American music scene of the early 20th Century and subsequent recognition in a Wikipedia entry.  Growing up in Los Angeles, Bob began to make a name for himself on the West Coast during the 1930s working with a series of dance bands.  Best known as a tenor and baritone saxophone player, shown below right, Bob also mastered the clarinet and bassoon.

Bob first gained national attention for his musicianship when he teamed with Stan Kenton, a good friend.  When Kenton formed his first band in the late 1930s, Bob joined him, making his first recording with Kenton in 1940 playing the tenor sax. He stayed on to anchor Kenton’s saxophone section until 1953 and appeared on virtually every recording session of the 40s and early 50s playing popular and jazz music.  Shown below is Bob, left, with Kenton.  About 1953 this Gioga, now married, retired from music.  During ensuing years the couple bought and operated a citrus farm. 

Meanwhile James Gioga and wife Rose must have basked in the attention their son was achieving on the national music scene. Throughout  his 37 years in this country, Gioga had never bothered to become an American citizen.  That changed in 1944 when he applied in the U.S. District Court of Los Angeles for naturalization.  He was granted citizenship.

Forest Lawn

 

Gioga would live another 19 years, dying in August 1963 at the age of 66.  He was buried in the famous Forest Lawn Memorial Park, Glendale, California. Rosa would join him there in 1972.  Living to be 94, Bob Gioga was buried near his parents in Forest Lawn after his death in 1999.

Note:  This post was composed from a wide range of sources.   Bob Gioga’s biography was drawn in part from an article in the publication “All Music.”