American “Drys” — Loving the Russian Czar

 Foreword:  The professed affection of President Trump for the Russian dictator, Vladimir Putin, brought to mind the attraction of American prohibitionists to the autocratic Czar of Russia.  Despite being more than a century old,  the story deserves to be told.

In 1914 members of the American Prohibition Movement fell in love with the Russian Czar, He was Nicholas II, shown here in his prime. With the outbreak of World War One, Nicholas was convinced by his ministers to prohibit all forms of alcohol because of their assumed detrimental impact on the readiness of Russia’s military forces. Drinking vodka and other spirits was a daily habit with many Russians, including members of the armed forces.   A considerable number regularly imbibed to excess.

The ease with which the Czar could cut off the alcohol spigot was made possible by the fact that since 1894 the Russian government had controlled all production of vodka and other spirits, reaping huge revenues in the process. American Prohibitionists took admiring notice of the Czar’s action and cheered as liquor was spilled on Moscow streets.

Under a 1914 headline entitled, “A Despot Needed,” one American commentator rhapsodized that: “Enlightened Russia knows the way, great Russia, with her tyrant czar; he twists his wrists and in a day the lid is placed on every bar....I wish we had a despot here, just to end ‘Old Booze.”  The Washington DC Evening Star editorialized that a “miracle” had occurred in Russia, noting cheerfully that the miracle had been made possible by Russia’s autocratic form of government.

As two cartoons published by the U.S. Dry lobby suggested, the Czar had become someone to be looked up to and emulated. In the first a Cossack has arrested a vodka bottle and is marching it off to detention. In the second “King Alcohol,” personified as a wicker covered bottle, salutes a Russian official while four apparently Americans look on approvingly.

Seen in the light of history, however, the Czar’s decision was a disaster. Fully one-third of Russia’s revenues came from the sale of vodka, even then an annual billion dollar business. Without the funds from alcohol sales, the government entered World War One with substantially less money than it needed. 

Moreover, prohibition made large segments of the Russian population angry. The rich still were able to buy vodka and other drinks at their clubs and in fancy restaurants. Only the lower classes were forced to give up drinking.

The country’s poor showing in the war and the growing unpopularity of Czar Nicholas gave rise to the Russian Revolution of 1918 in which the Communists came to power. The Czar and his family were executed. The new rulers led by Lenin, shown here, initially were opposed to drinking but Russians gradually had ceased to worry about the ban on vodka. Just as Prohibition in the U.S. (1920-1934) gave rise to bootleggers, in Russia,  potatoes were everywhere and so were illegal stills. By Soviet official count they tripled in numbers in the period from 1922 to 1924.

Gradually the Communist government ban on alcohol eased. Wine was legalized in 1921, beer in 1922, other alcohol in 1923, and, finally, in 1924 vodka sales again were permitted. Russians, as shown below, now could drink freely once again.  And do it legally.

By that time the United States, yielding to the “dry” fervor sweeping the country in 1920 had enacted its own National Prohibition.  America’s outlawing of spirits would be imposed until 1934, a span of some fourteen years.  The Russian ban on alcoholic drink lasted only about ten. 

The Life and Loves of Indiana’s Martin Bligh

 

Martin J. Bligh came to America from Ireland at age 14, settled in Logansport, Indiana, and carved out a 38 year career there selling liquor. His marriages, however, not whiskey sales, would earn Bligh newspaper headlines and intense local interest in his adopted country.

Bligh is an English name generally associated with the Cornwell region.  In the early 1700s John Bligh became the Earl of Darnley, creating the first family peerage in Ireland and triggering Bligh family migration to the Emerald Isle. Martin Bligh was the son of Michael and Mary Samidy Bligh.  Born in 1861 in Castle Rea, the third largest town in County Roscommon, the boy emigrated to America about 1875 at age 14, most likely accompanied by relatives.

The next few years are shrouded in the mists of history but indications are that Martin was able to achieve additional education.  At some point Bligh located in Logansport, Indiana, shown here, that became his home place for much of the rest of his life.  Along the way he apparently achieved sufficient experience to open a wholesale liquor house, a venture that proved to be very profitable over a period of the next 35 years.

Bligh used a variety of brand names for his whiskey.  They included "Dan Dalton,” “Decatur,” "Lone Valley Pennsylvania Pure Rye,” "Old Logan Club,” "Queen of Bourbon,” "Spring Creek,” "Valley Mills,”  and “Woodlawn." Bligh’s flagship brand was “Old Logan Club” shown here in a back-of-the- bar bottle that would have sat invitingly behind the barkeeper. 

 Another Bligh-gifted fancy carafe to saloons advertised “Queen of Bourbon.” He also gave away shot glasses to favored wholesale and retaiil customers, as shown below.  When Congress stiffened trademark laws in 1905, Blight copyrighted that name and all but one other brand (“Valley Mills”).  He did so despite the costs that discouraged other dealers from claiming protection for their liquor names.  It was an unusual — and expensive — move involving lawyers and other costs but Bligh apparently saw the value.  

Along with his busy occupation as a liquor dealer, Bligh was having a complicated — one might say, tumultuous — marital situation. In November 1800, at 19 years old Bligh returned to Europe to be married.  His bride was Elizabeth Ann Kelly, daughter of Anne Bergin and James Kelly.  Of similar ages, it is possible the couple had been childhood sweethearts.  Wed in Yorkshire, England, the new bride accompanied her young groom back to Logansport.

Bligh babies were not long in coming.  Their first child was a girl, Anna Hannah, born in 1882, when the couple were each about 21  Anna was followed in 1883 by Michael Francis.  Then after a hiatus of four years, Mary Catherine was born in 1887 and Bertha Agnes in 1889.  The next two births, sons Martin (1890) and “E.T.”  (1893), both died in infancy.   Over the years the relationship between Martin and Elizabeth Bligh changed dramatically.

Despite their four minor children, the couple became seriously estranged and Bligh began a new relationship,  By now 32 years old and accounted a wealthy man, Bligh divorced Elizabeth and shortly after married 19 year old Katherine “Katie” Eiserlo.  The story engendered newspaper stories around Indiana. The Logansport newspaper headlined:  “Married Yesterday at Cincinnati by a Justice of the Peace - The Groom Divorced Three Months ago.”

The paper told this story:     “The mother of the bride, it is said, objected to the union and she was greatly surprised yesterday morning, upon receipt of a letter from her daughter, worded as follows: ‘Mother - We have gone to Cincinnati. DO not be alarmed. Will return in a few days. - Katie.’ …The marriage occurred at the Palace Hotel…While the affair bears the favor of an elopement, the bride's father is said to have given his consent to the union, and had been informed of the time and place of the wedding.

Elizabeth Kelly Bligh, the cast-off wife, was not so easily dismissed.  In a suit filed in Kokomo, Indiana, she claimed that in addition to the divorce and payment of alimony she was owed an additional $10,000 in damages for defamation of her character.  After pleading that she had no money for a lawyer, Judge Kirkpatrick appointed two retired judges to represent her at the courthouse in Kokomo, shown here, a change of venue required by the intense scrutiny of the case in Logansport.

In her complaint for damages, Elizabeth charged that Martin had written a letter to her brother in which her he accused her of immorality and drunkeness, while she temporarily had returned to Ireland after being abandoned by her husband.  Bligh promptly countersued.  As reported in the Indianapolis Journal the ex-husband in an affidavit claimed that:  Mrs. Bligh was possessed of $10,000 worth of real estate, and has diamonds, horses and carriages and other personal property of the value of $10,000 more, and asked that the appointment of attorneys be set aside… The trial on the main issue commences Monday, and will be a prolonged contest.  Although I have been unable to find the outcome of the trial it is problematic that Bligh, known to be a wealthy man, could have walked away without some monetary judgment against him.  Elizabeth, with at least some of the children, promptly moved to Toledo, Ohio, where  she apparently had relatives. 

In the meantime Martin and bride Catherine set about creating a new family.  Their first child, Thomas H. was born in 1895, followed by Edgar J. in 1898.  Two daughters followed, Bonita A. in 1900 and Almytra in 1904.  The couple’s last child, George, was born in 1909.  All lived to maturity.  To house his family Bligh provided a large house at 1209 High Street in Logansport, shown here.

Bligh appears to have redeemed his reputation in Logansport despite the contentious divorce and scandalous remarriage.  He continued to operate his liquor house in Logansport until 1918 when Indiana passed a law banning the sale of alcoholic beverages.  It had proved to be a lucrative business, complementing a lumber and coal yard Bligh also owned.   The local press accounted him a “power’ in the Republican party in Cass County, Indiana, calling Bligh a: “A keen businessman, very resourceful, a staunch friend….”

Bligh subsequently moved 24 miles to Rochester, Indiana, where he had farming interests.  Over the next few years he suffered financial reverses leading to his retreat in 1925 from Rochester back to Logansport.   The local paper there speculated:  “When reverses overtook him he did not show it in his demeanor and his friends believed that if his health had not been bad he would have over come his financial difficulties before he died.”

Bligh’s death certificate testified to the story.   He was stricken with heart problems beginning in March 1927 and under the care of doctors for the next two years until he died of a brain clot on April 5, 1929.   Katherine and his children, all now adults, were gathered for his funeral at St. Joseph’s Catholic Church.  He was buried in St. Vincent Cemetery.  Bligh’s grave stone is shown above, along with Katherine’s who passed away 32 years after her husband.   In a final irony, Elizabeth, Bligh’s cast-off wife, also is buried in St. Vincent’s.

Note:  The sources for much of this post on Martin Bligh are stories from Indiana newspapers.

  

       

 

The Bitters Trade Cards of John Sheehan, Utica NY

 

After a brief mention of John H. Sheehan for this blog on February 28, 1913, I had notanticipated visiting this Irish immigrant again 12 years later.  My main subject then was Peter Vidvard, a Utica liquor dealer,  Sheehan had married his daughter, joined in a brief partnership with Vidvard, and later left to open a drug store.  But not, however, to give up selling spiritous beverages.  

Sheehan offered a highly alcoholic remedy he called “Dandelion Bitters” calling it The Great Herb Blood Remedy.  He boasted that his nostrum was a “Rapid and Sure Cure For Loss of  Appetite, Habitual Costiveness [Constipation],  Nervous and General Depression, Indigestion, Biliousness, Sleeplessness, Rheumatism, Kidney Complaints, and General Debility.”  To advertise this broad spectrum remedy Sheehan issued a series of trade cards that deserve attention because these artifacts reflect elements of the late 19th and early 20th Century in American.

The first set of Dandelion Bitters trade cards shown here have much the same theme, cards based around pictures of early telephones. In 1881 the American Bell Telephone Company,  working from the invention of Alexander Graham Bell,

registered profits of $200,000 (6 Million equivalent today) from the virtual telephone monopoly it owned.  It leased telephones to customers and retained ownership of the instruments it owned.  Although these trade cards all find something humorous to convey,  the telephonic instruments employed differ in size and appearance, indicating a beginning of some variety.

The Bufford firm, celebrated for its drawings of trade cards and celebrated in my post of February 5, 2025, was the enterprise of John Henry Bufford.  Born in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, Bufford apprenticed in Boston and by 1835 briefly moved to New York, where he opened a lithography business. Five years later he returned to Boston and formed a partnership with his brother-in-law in a new lithographic printing firm, for which he did most of the drawing. The business thrived for the next forty years.  The message below was typical of the flip side of such cards.

The following two trade cards aparently were products of other (unnamed) print shops that provided Sheehan with two pictures of attractive children to advertise his bitters panacea:  a winsome little girl who appears to be wearing a large flower on her head as a hat and and a sturdy little chap in a sailor suit with his dog. The message on the flip side tells us that Dandelion Bitters prevents “The usual Lassitude of approaching warm weather…By keeping the system in good order, the wastes of the body are freely carried off which keeps the Blood pure, preventing and curing Rheumatism.”   Obviously knowledge of human biology was not a Sheehan strong point.

One last  trade card, also with an unidentified artist and publisher, is not a bitters ad.  It advertises “John N.  Sheehan…Druggists, Utica, N.Y.”  This image is billed as a “souvenir” and depict a weeping youngster dressed in what I believe is a South American musician’s costume.  Although I have not seen a similar item I suspect the card may be part of a series of children in foreign costumes, meant to be collected.

Note: This short (extra) post would not have been possible without the Peachridge Glass website publication of the trade cards , dated February 3, 2015.  The author is Ferdinand Weber, former president of the Federation of Historical Bottle Collectors, who graciously has allowed me to publish the Sheehan images. The Vidvard artcle was published February 28, 2013.

Addendum:   In researching the Sheehan story, I found evidence that the druggist also apparently had a line of whiskeys that the proprietor sold in elaborately decorated ceramic jugs.  I had never seen them before and think they also deserve attention.