C. H. Godwin: “Ambitious to Know Every Man” — and Sell Him Whiskey

At the age of 41, Charles H. Godwin in 1914 took a sharp turn in life.  Even assuming a new name, he threw himself into creating a mail order liquor house in Monroe, Louisiana. In an extraordinary merchandising flyer, Godwin, shown right, addressed himself to the public as someone “…Who has grown up with this country, who is ambitious to know every man up and down the road, and who backs with every resource at his command the truths of our motto ‘HAL-WIN LIQUORS ALWAYS SATISFY.’”

He was born Charles Henry Godwin on October 16, 1873, in Opelousas, Louisiana, the third child of John W. Godwin, a native of Alabama, and Lucy L. Mathews, born in Mississippi. His family called him “Hal.”  The family moved frequently during  Godwin’s early years, by 1880 settling in Rayville, Louisiana, a small town some 22 miles directly west of Monroe.  There Godwin would grow up, be educated, and find early employment in local businesses, likely ones that sold liquor.

In 1899 at the age of 25, Charles married Leila McCreight, 18 and a native of Louisiana.  They would raise a family of five children, two daughters and three sons.  With the financial needs of his growing family a likely factor, early in the 1900s he struck out on his own, under the name “C. H. Godwin.”  In 1905 he was recorded operating a grocery and saloon in Mer Rouge, a hamlet 30 miles north and a bit east of Monroe. 

This may have been a relatively short-lived enterprise since in 1907 he was engaged in Monroe, running the Iron Mountain Saloon, located at 519 Ouachita Avenue and later at 315 South Second Street.  According to one source, “Iron Mountain” did not refer to a geographical site but to the name of an railroad.  As shown here in a 1913 Monroe business directory, Godwin described himself as a “wholesale and retail dealer in wines, liquors and cigars.”  At some point he issued a mini-jug of whiskey to favored customers.

While operating this enterprise, however, Godwin saw another opportunity.  All around him Monroe liquor dealers were cashing in on the effects of the prohibition movement.  States in the South and West one by one had gone “dry.”  Under local option laws individual towns and counties even in “wet” states were banning alcohol sales.  It remained legal, however, to ship liquor interstate into those areas.  Moreover, the few Louisiana jurisdictions to vote themselves “dry” still could be reached with impunity.  Monroe, with good rail access to points around the compass, became a center of mail order liquor sales.  Complained an official of “dry” Shreveport:    “Such a farce is the law in this State that Monroe, La., alone, shipped 3,000,000 drinks into Shreveport last Christmas.”

Now calling himself C. Hal Godwin, the saloonkeeper made a pivot from selling drinks over the bar to seeking mail order sales through a company he called “Hal-Win Distilling Co..The Systematic Shipping House.”  It was a costly move.  He bought in an experienced supervisor named Bernard Seligman to run his office and shipping room.  Seligman, Godwin claimed, “gave up a position as the head of the largest Mail Order house in Virginia to associate himself with the house with the big future — HAL WIN DIST. CO.”

Godwin also had made a deal with the Bernheim Bros. Distillery in Louisville for whiskey, noting “…It has cost us tremendous money to make this new connection.”  The link with the noted Kentucky whiskey maker likely was something of a coup, giving C. Hal some advantage over his Monroe competition.  Shown throughout this post are examples of his ads pushing Bernheim’s brands, such as Old Continental Whiskey and the flagship I. W. Harper Rye.

Shaw’s Malt Whiskey was another Bernheim product, sold as for its medicinal value and advertised as “What the Doctor Ordered!  A Mild Stimulant & Tonic to Build up & Strengthen — to Enrich the Blood & Steady the Nerves.”  A Godwin illustration shows a physician ministering this “tonic and beverage,” one that “tastes like nectar,” to an elderly man and woman.  

Godwin also featured his own proprietary house brands, including “Hal-Win Green Label” and “Hal-Win Cream of Monroe.”  It is unclear whether he was receiving the whiskey for these blends directly from Bernheim Bros. or mixing them up in his own facility.  While Old Continental from the Louisville distillery cost $1.25 a quart, Green Label was $1.00 and Creme of Monroe 80 cents for the same quantity. Godwin never bothered to trademark either label but did issue advertising shot glasses for his brands.

In a long introductory flyer introducing his new company, Godwin summed up by noting that in addition to getting Bernheim’s whiskey and Seligman’s experience, a customer could count on “the constant personal interest and watchfulness of your old friend C. Hal Godwin….”  He concluded with the statement that opened this post, his ambition to meet every man “up and down the road.”

Although the quality of Godwin’s marketing materials clearly was superior to most of his day, a question remains of their results.  Although none of his materials are dated, he appears to have initiated his efforts about 1912, late in the game for selling whiskey by mail.  Congress shortly would make it illegal to sell liquor across state lines into “dry” states and localities.  Although most of Louisiana was predictably “wet,” even there as a result of local option more and more localities had banned alcohol.  Godwin also faced considerable established competition, including from other Monroe liquor dealers. [See my post on Rufus Webb, March 2014.]  Finally in 1913 he suffered a warehouse fire in which whiskey stocks worth the equivalent today of $250,000 were destroyed.

Whatever the immediate outcome, the Hal-Win Distilling Company was doomed to be short-lived as National Prohibition was approved in 1919 and the alcohol ban became the law all across the country.  Godwin was forced to shut down his mail order liquor house and his Iron Mountain Saloon.  Sometimes listed as Charles H. and sometimes as C. Hal, Godwin’s occupation subsequently was recorded as insurance salesman (1929) and as a director of an oil and gas company (1933).  His home was at 501 Pine Street, shown here.

Godwin died in Monroe in 1954 at the age of 80 and was buried there in Riverview Cemetery. His gravestone is shown here.  His wife, Leila, had preceded him there, dying in 1946.  Also interred near the couple was their son, Charles Hal Goodwin.  Enlisting in the U.S. Army in 1922, Charles Hal, 18, died in basic training during an influenza epidemic. 

The Bernheim Brothers and the Origins of I. W. Harper Whiskey

        At the doorway of  Schenley Industries Distillery in Louisville, Kentucky, is an elegant bronze  plaque flanked by a sign reading:

“Bernheim Distilling Company

—as tribute to a man and his family who pioneered

the whiskey industry in America.”

Isaac Wolfe Bernheim, a German-Jewish immigrant, arrived in the United States soon after the Civil War with only four dollars in his pocket. He is shown below as a youth and in his elder years.  By founding a whiskey business, Bernheim had “realized the American dream” by the time of his death 55 years later, making millions and giving his adopted country one of its best known brands of whiskey:  “I. W. Harper.”

Bernheim was born in Schmieheim, Baden-Wurttenberg, Germany, in 1848, the son of Leon and Fanny (Dreyfuss) Bernheim.  His father was a merchant.  At the age of 19, he emigrated to the U.S., arriving in New York in April of 1867.   Following a family tradition, Bernheim first worked as a peddler, selling clothing from a horse drawn cart, traveling around Pennsylvania.  He ultimately settled in Paducah, Kentucky, where he worked as a bookkeeper and later a salesman for a liquor wholesale firm.  His salary of $40 a month allowed him save enough to bring his younger brother, Bernard to America in 1870.  

Two years later the pair opened their own whiskey wholesale business in Paducah, calling it Bernheim Bros.  They put their life savings, said to be $1,200, to help fund the start-up.  N. M . Uri, Bernheim’s brother-in-law, joined in 1875, and the name of the firm was changed to Bernheim Bros. and Uri.  At that point the partners in the wholesale liquor trade and like many wholesalers, mixing and blending raw whiskeys to achieve a particular taste.  In 1879, Bernheim Bros. took the step that would bring fame to their name:  They registered the “I. W. Harper” name.

As widely recognized, the “I. W.” was derived from Isaac Wolfe’s own name. But there is no consensus on how the partners happened on the “Harper.”  Some think it was derived from Harper’s Ferry, West Virginia.  Others believe it was taken from F. B. Harper, the surname of a famous Kentucky horse breeder.  Still others believe it was “borrowed” from the Harper & Delaney Distillery located near Paducah.  In any case, it is agreed that Isaac wanted a American sounding name for his flagship brand. 

The Bernheims were among the first distillers to see the advertising advantages of winning medals at World’s Fairs and other international expositions.  In many such event just showing up with a display was enough to insure a medal.  Their first medal for I. W. Harper came in 1885 at the World’s Industrial and Cotton Exposition in New Orleans.  They issued a ceramic whiskey container to mark the occasion.  Many other such recognitions would follow.

In 1888, the Bernheims and Uri moved their firm to Louisville, likely in order to be closer to the center of Kentucky distilling and to insure themselves of a steady flow of product for their blends.  In order better to secure that supply the company in 1890 acquired an interest in the Pleasure Ridge Park Distillery, seven miles southwest of Louisville, a facility that had been founded in the 1870s by F. G. Paine.  Initially this distillery had a relatively small output, producing only about 500 barrels of whiskey a year.  In June 1891 N. M. Uri, left the partnership and began his own successful liquor wholesale house.  (See my post of August 2, 2012 on Uri.)  The company name reverted back to Bernheim Bros. Co. 

The Bernheims continued to buy out the original owners and by 1896 had acquired full ownership of the distillery and were producing I. W. Harper and other house brands there.  Isaac was president of the corporation.  That same year, however, the Pleasure Ridge Park Distillery was destroyed by fire, leaving the firm with  $1 million tax bill on the bonded whiskey that had been stored in its warehouses.  The result was 18 months of litigation until the government dropped its claim.

Rather than rebuild Pleasure Ridge Park, the Bernheims sold the property and built their own distillery in the town of Shively, just south of Louisville on Bernheim Lane and the Illinois Pike.  Known to the Feds as Registered Distillery #9 in the Fifth District of Kentucky, it had mashing capacity of 600 bushels a day and warehouse capacity for 61,000 barrels.  The plant is shown above on an illustration inside an acorn, a familiar symbol for the Bernheims.  Around the nut is the inscription:  “Tall Oaks from Little Acorns Grow.”  The motto suggests how far Isaac and his brother had come in their trade. 

By placing ads for their whiskeys in national publications and using other advertising devices, the Bernheims captured a nationwide clientele for I. W. Harper and other brands.  They made particular use of colorful chromolithographed trade cards, some with patriotic themes, some with risqué implications.  To a degree virtually unheard of in the liquor trade, Isaac and his brother also emphasized the use of giveaway items.  They included wall signs, some on reverse painted glass, others on vitrolite;  back of the bar bottles, often with deeply etched gold lettering; shot glasses,  and bar side tea kettles.  Of the kettles, the numbers and variety provide enough for an entire post (See my bottlesboozeandbackstories.blogspot.com for June 23, 2012.)  In total the Bernheims left present day collectors a treasure trove of artifacts.

Indicating how tall that tall oak had grown, in 1903 the company incorporated as Bernheim Distilling Co. with $2 million in capital (equivalent to $50 million today).  They continued their expansion in 1906 buying the smaller Warwick Distillery (RD #1, 8th Dist. of KY), located on Silver Creek and Lancaster Pike in Madison County.  It is recorded with an original mashing capacity of 300 bushels a day and storage for 400 barrels.  Under the Bernheims the mashing capacity doubled and the warehouses expanded to hold 9,200 barrels.  The brothers eventually also held ownership in the Mayfield Distillery (RD #229, 5th Dist. of KY), in Larue County.  It could mash 700 bushel of grain a day and warehouse 37,000 barrels.  The Bernheims were being well supplied with product.

During this period the brothers were also getting a reputation for their philanthropy.  In 1901 they gave the city of Louisville a statue of Thomas Jefferson that now stands in front of the Jefferson County Courthouse.  It cost them $60,000 ($1.5 million today).  Recalling their heritage they gave generously to Jewish causes, including the Louisville’s Jewish Hospital and the Y.M.H.A.  But they show similar generosity to the Little Sisters of the Poor, the German Protestant Altenheim, and the Colored Orphans Home.  Their greatest gift, for which they continue to be remembered, was the donation of 14,000 acres of parkland in Bullitt County, Kentucky.  It is known today as Bernheim Forest.

By 1909 the Bernheims largely had divested themselves of their distilleries, selling both the Bernheim and the Warwick plants to an organization of local businessmen called the United American Company.  In 1911 the Bernheim Bros. Shively distillery burned but was rebuilt, expanding the mashing capacity to 1,600 bushels per day.  In 1915 Isaac Bernheim at the age of 67 retired from business, eventually moving to California.  Bernard died in 1925 and was buried in Louisville’s Temple Cemetery, a tall statue marking his grave.  Isaac lived until he was 95, dying in Santa Monica.  His body originally was interred at Cave Hill Cemetery in Louisville but moved in 1956 to Bernheim Forest where an elaborate memorial, shown below, marks his grave and that of his wife.

Both men witnessed the coming of National Prohibition when both the Bernheim Bros. and Warwick plants were partially dismounted and the property sold.  But Bernheim Distilling Co., under its new owners, operated as a medicinal whiskey distributor.  In 1934 with Repeal, the Canadian Schenley Co. purchased the I.W. Harper brand, ultimately becoming the property of the present-day United Distillers.  As a result, I. W. Harper bottles still beckon from the liquor store shelf to whiskey buyers.  But only, I am told, in foreign markets.