Shown here, Patterson Sr. was born in 1813 in County Tyrone Northern Ireland, likely of Scottish heritage, the son of William and Mary Louisa Culver Patterson. His family apparently were reasonably affluent, allowing him to attend local elementary and secondary,schools and go on to higher education. He then entered the Greenwich, England, Royal Navy College with the goal of becoming a naval officer. After losing his right eye in an accident and having no chance at a military career, he became an apprentice to a London manufacturer. Tiring of that occupation, at age 25 Patterson Sr. emigrated to America. He headed to Eastern Kentucky, settling in Louisville.
Patterson Sr. almost immediately began working in the iron and steel industry. Because of his ability he rapidly rose to ownership and, a biographer commented, “soon amassed a large fortune.” In 1848 he was helped along the way by his marriage to the daughter of a wealthy local merchant. She was Mary Culver, likely a distant cousin, a woman who would bear him eight children, four girls and four boys. Among the latter was William Patterson Jr.
As his family grew, the members watched the Patterson fortunes rise and fall. With the outbreak of the Civil War, although technically part of the Union, Kentucky was riven with conflict. The result resulted in ruin for Patterson Sr. He lost his business and post-war was required to go to work for an iron and steel works in an adjoining county. When that company shut down a year later, the Scots-Irish immigrant, in a startling change of occupation, bought an interest in a Louisville distillery.
It was the Swearingen & Biggs whiskey operation, called Mellwood Distillery. “Beginning on a small scale it became one of the largest and most successful institutions in the state.” Shown above, insurance records indicate a large facility built of brick and equipped with a fire-proof roof. The property contained seven warehouses, one a “free (no federal regulation) that stood 70 feet southwest of the still and six “bottled in bond” warehouses, all within 300 feet of the still. The Mellwood Distillery could mash 1,200 bushels of grain daily and had the capacity to hold 65,000 barrels of aging whiskey. Later the warehouses would be expanded slightly to 70,000 barrels. [See post on Swearingen and Mellwood, October 8, 2015.]
Although Patterson Sr. continued his interest in distilling, his entrepreneurial spirit also led him to found the Louisville Mantle & Casket Company. Not long after, however, bad health caused him to end his business career. For the next five years he lived as an invalid attended by wife Mary and six children still at home. On January 29, 1891, Patterson Sr. died. The cause given was apoplexy, probably a stroke. His death was expected and his family was gathered at his bedside as he peacefully expired at the age of 78.
The Louisville Courier Journal headline of the news read: “A Highly Respected Citizen Passes Away.” The story continued: “During his long residence in this city Mr. Patterson had formed extensive acquaintances. He was a man of conscientious character, and during severest hardships in business, his friends never deserted him.” Patterson’s funeral took place at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, his pallbearers drawn from the Louisville business community. He was buried in Cave Hill Cemetery where many of the city’s “Whiskey Barons” are interred.
His father’s interest in the liquor trade was carried on by William Patterson Jr., his eldest son, who was 36 years old when his father died, and already involved in Louisville’s whiskey industry. Widely known as “Billy,” Patterson Jr. began his career at the age of 16 when he went to work for a distillery, likely Mellwood.
He proved to have ample business acumen. Before reaching 21 he already had amassed a considerable fortune by buying old malt from local distilleries and selling it at a profit.
Unlike his father, who primarily was an investor, Patterson Jr. was full bore into the whiskey trade. In 1866, J. G. Mattingly, of a noted distilling family, had built a distillery on Rudd Lane in Louisville, calling it The Marion County Distilling Co. In December 1887 the plant and brand were sold to Patterson Jr. and two partners. By the following year, the distillery was turning out 5,000 barrels of whiskey a year. Insurance records indicate that the property included four warehouses, all brick with metal or slate roofs. Three were bonded with one “free” warehouse located 115 feet north of the still. A cattle shed and a six-story aging facility adjoined the cistern room.
In addition to his own warehouses, Patterson Jr. was making use of other storage opportunities. Louisville investors in 1884 had built a large warehouse, shown here, on Main Street, a block from the area known as “Whiskey Row.” It principally provided public storage for aging whiskey as well as tobacco and other local manufactures. The company also came to own a similar warehouse in Bremen, Germany, the city shown below, that allowed local distillers to ship their whiskey abroad. Because of taxes, it was cheaper to age whiskey out of the country and pay import duty. The cost of transport across the Atlantic was relatively inexpensive and the sloshing inside barrels on the high seas was generally believed to enhance quality.
Patterson Jr. was among the Louisville “whiskey men” to take advantage of the opportunity. The note that opens this post tells the story. The bourbon had been distilled by Patterson’s Marion County Distillery in 1894, sent to Bremen by ship in February 1902, returned to the U.S. in 1906, and bottled in July 1911.This 17-year-old, well-traveled bourbon subsequently was put on sale in New York City by liquor dealer C. A. Van Rensselaer, shown here.
Annual production of the Marion County Distillery put Patterson Jr. squarely in the ranks of the whiskey-making elites of Kentucky. He featured a number of house brands, none of which he copyrighted. They included “Old Patterson,”“William Patterson Rye,” Marion,” and “Portland.” He had, however, arrived on the Kentucky whiskey scene as a major player at a difficult time. There was a growing glut of whiskey on the American market. According to industry spokesmen, Kentucky distillers by 1895 had 85 million gallons of whiskey in bond, worth $34,000,000 that they feared “cannot be gotten rid of.”
Patterson Jr. was a member of a small group of leading distillers who met at Louisville’s posh Gall House Hotel in July 1895 to discuss the crisis. As the board of managers of the Kentucky Distillers Association their purpose was to discuss endorsing a yearlong shut down of the state’s distilleries. “To further manufacture whiskey means further glutting the market and a ruinous slackening of profitable business.” Characterized as a “strike” by the Louisville Courier Journal, the board unanimously voted to propose that Kentucky distilleries shut down for a year beginning in July 1896. The action, it was claimed, would yield between $20 million and $25 milllion additional value to the bonded whiskey stocks currently on hand.
In order for this strategy of “shut-down” to work, however, ninety percent of Kentucky’s distilleries would be obliged to comply. The advocates expressed the hope that the state’s liquor dealers also would agree with the yearlong “dry” period. Advocates, however, were hard-pressed to declare any advantage for dealers. Since the objective of the strike was to raise the price of whiskey from the distilleries, the increased cost would be felt in the first instance by the dealers. A dissenting distillery owner also argued that an increase in the price of whiskey to the consumer would have the effect of leading the drinking public to consume the “cheapest and impurest” whiskey, and encourage dealers to compound and mix their own liquors. He argued that “the man who drinks will drink whether the drink be fine or bad.” In the end the one year strike fell far short of enlisting the necessary numbers of cooperating distillers. The proposal failed and the glut of whiskey continued.
The resulting downturn in the profitability of Patterson Jr.’s Marion County Distillery continued into the 20th Century. By 1905 he decided to sell out to the Whiskey Trust that was taking advantage of the downturn in the profitability of Kentucky distilleries to buy them up. Although the Trust’s strategy was to close many of them, it kept the Marion County Distillery open and producing until the advent of National Prohibition. The property was razed in 1904.
Patterson Jr. pivoted to becoming a whiskey wholesaler, operating from locations in the 200 block of West Main Street, a denizen of “Whiskey Row.” As National Prohibition loomed ever larger on the horizon, he advertised as a mail order house seeking to serve “dry” cities and towns. When Congress passed new legislation to outlaw that practice and the Supreme Court upheld it two years later, Patterson Jr.’s days selling whiskey were over.
He became despondent. At 61 years old, this once recognized millionaire Kentucky “Whiskey Baron” was found dead in the bathroom of his residence. He had committed suicide by cutting his throat with a razor. It lay on the floor by his side. That morning he had told his wife he was going to shave himself. When he had failed to emerge from the bathroom two hours later, his wife, alarmed, went looking for him and discovered his body. Although medical aid was summoned, Patterson Jr. already was dead. The Coroner was summoned and ruled the death self-inflicted.
Friends of Patterson Jr. told the press that he had been despondent for some time because of business losses and attributed his suicide to that cause. After a funeral in Calvary Episcopal Church, he was interred in Cave Hill Cemetery. His grave, shown right. is adjacent to that of Patterson Sr. Both men had faced the highs and lows of doing business in post-Civil War Kentucky. For one of them the experience had proved fatal.
Notes: The major source of information about the Pattersons are articles from the Louisville Courier Journal, the city’s leading newspaper.
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