Whiskey Men as Pariahs

Foreword:  Most whiskey men profiled here have had careers that were straightforward, productive and prosperous.  Except by prohibitionists, they were respected in their communities, often for their civic participation and their philanthropic giving. A small minority, however, became “pariahs,” social outcasts as a result of activities offensive to their peers.  Described here are the stories of three such cases, each of them different in the perceived breaches of propriety.

The Whitlock brothers, Benjamin M. and Edmund A., were grocers in New York City who launched several popular whiskey brands and also were widely known for Southern sympathies and pro-slavery views during the 1850s and early 1860s.  The Civil War cost them their once flourishing business and the resulting traumas may have sent both to early graves.  Even after their deaths, for many people the Whitlocks remained outcasts.

The Whitlocks’ New York retail establishment was described as “one of the largest and important in its line in the country.”  Their many visitors from Dixie clearly were discussing national politics with the Whitlocks along with the price of peaches. In the years running up to the Civil War,  Benjamin actively supported Southern causes, including retaining slavery.  That same year, Benjamin went further.  As the Nation trembled on the brink of war, he invited to New York members of the “Savannah Republican Blues,” a Southern militia unit, and made them guests at his mansion farm home, shown above.

With the outbreak of the Civil War in 1861, the Whitlocks tried to move their business to Savannah, Georgia, but it was too late.  According to a New York Times report, the result was that the Whitlocks “lost overwhelmingly.”  Their Southern customers either ignored their debts to the New Yorker or were unable to make the necessary financial transfers because of wartime disruption. In the North, customers shunned them.  The brothers were ruined financially.  Benjamin was forced to sell his horses, stock, stables and his mansion, subsequently known as “Whitlock’s Folly.”

Southern sympathizer relatives and friends of the Whitlocks, in part because of the brothers’ fate, pledged revenge vowing: “These Yankees…will learn what…it is to incur the enmity of a proud and chivalric people.”  The conspirators, including a Whitlock brother-in-law,  set out to burn down portions of central Manhattan.  Before their escape to Canada they succeeded in torching several hotel rooms and the Barnum Museum.  No one was killed. Possibly as a result of stress both brothers died young.  Afterward other Whitlock families were quick to disavow any relationship.  

When Frederick G. Goetzmann, a French immigrant, took proprietorship of his liquor business in the midst of the U.S. Civil War, he succeeded in building this enterprise into major whiskey wholesaler in Rochester and throughout Northeast New York.  He could hardly foresee the fate that would befall his liquor house after his death, and luckily so.

With growing prosperity Goetzmann ultimately built quarters at 9 Atwater Street, a building of three stories with large display windows in front.  He also commissioned a mansion home in the prestigious Hyde Park District. shown below.  In 1899, Frederick at age 71 died and was buried in the Mount Hope Cemetery in Rochester.   In the 1900 census, his three sons —  Henry, Charles and William —  were all listed as working for the liquor house.  Henry now became the president and chief executive officer.  Then something went terribly wrong.  Within months the business that Frederick painstakingly had built for more than 35 years was in bankruptcy. 

According to press accounts, company indebtedness to distillers approached $50,000 (equiv. to more than $1 million today) and its assets were only $22,515, including the value of whiskey in its warehouses. Moreover, criminal intent was alleged.  Valuable warehouse certificates reputedly had been transferred illegally by the Goetzmanns.  Worse yet, CEO Henry had disappeared.   As related in the press:  “It is charged that Henry Goetzmann, head of the company, left home in July for parts unknown….but that he has since been drawing funds from the company.  It is claimed he has been heard from in Butte, Mont., Boston, and Chicago, but that he refuses to return to Rochester.”   

In other words, Henry had left others, including his brothers, “holding the bag.” The Goetzmann name was reviled in the liquor industry.  The bankruptcy proceeded and eventually the claimants received some compensation.  The family was forced to sell their mansion and moved to a less pretentious homestead.  Henry eventually returned to Rochester.  Frederick Goetzmann & Sons Co., however, disappeared forever.  

In the lore of Kentucky whiskey, Dan Russell is a distinctly minor figure.  Most books on the history of the industry ignore him completely.  In others he is at most a passing reference or a footnote.  That obscurity, however, was not for Russell’s lack of trying.  By pushing front and center his name, his face, a title, and his liquor he eagerly sought a place among the state’s acknowledged whiskey barons. Given Russell’s stature as president of a major Louisville distillery, shown below, called “Old Times” and his own strenuous effort to get himself known widely in Kentucky and, indeed, the Nation, why has whiskey history largely ignored him? 

The reason was told in a Loujsville newspaper story of March 13, 1917.  The headline read:  “Alleged Conspiracy to Sell Stolen Postage Stamps,  Dan H. Russell, a Prominent Louisville Man, Placed Under Arrest.”   For whatever reason, Russell had been entangled in a national conspiracy to buy and sell stolen postage stamps, estimated by the government to be worth $40,000.

Also arrested were the ringleaders, a man named Henry Bronger and his son, along with a local druggist.  According to postal inspectors, Louisville was the center of the plot, receiving and “fencing” stamps sent from points as far away as Georgia, Louisiana and Texas.  Hauled into Federal Court, Russell — identified by the paper as “a leader in fraternal circles and prominent in the business and social life of Louisville” — pleaded guilty to having knowingly received the stolen stamps.  Possibly because of his prominence he got no jail time but a fine of $1,500 (equiv. $37,000 today).  

Within three years National Prohibition shut down liquor sales.  Having been disgraced, Russell was now without employment at the age of 55.  These tidings may have taken a toll on his health.  The following April, he died and was buried in Louisville’s Eastern Cemetery, one of the city’s oldest graveyards that, as shown here, subsequently was abandoned and largely forgotten.  In a state where other distillers’ well-tended graves are marked with large monuments, Russell’s is lost among the field grass and wildflowers.

Note:  Longer narratives on each of these whiskey men is provided on this blog:  The Whitlocks, May 5, 2016; the Goetzmanns, December 7, 2016, and Dan Russell, August 14, 2016. Check the dates on the right side of the blog column.

The Rise and Fall of the House of Goetzmann

   

When Frederick G. Goetzmann, a Jewish immigrant, took proprietorship of his own liquor business in the midst of the U.S. Civil War, he likely dreamed of building this enterprise into major whiskey wholesaler in Rochester, New York,  and he succeeded.   Frederick could hardly foresee the fate that would befall his liquor house after his death, and luckily so.

The Goetzmann story began in 1828 in a German-speaking part of France, called Rittershofen, Bas Rhin (Lower Rhine), Alsace Province.   Frederick was the son of David aka “Dahfeat” and Jean Frederic aka “Sarah” Goetzmann.  When he was just a small boy, his father during the 1830s uprooted the family and emigrated to the United States, settling in Rochester.  Frederick likely received primary and perhaps some secondary education in local schools, before going to work.

In 1850 Frederick made the public record in Rochester by getting married.  His bride was Sarah S. Feiock, apparently known as Salome, who had been born in the same French-German town as he had.   Since  they could hardly have been sweethearts in the homeland, it suggests that they met on American shores.   They would go on to have nine children, girls: Louise born 1851; Julia, 1856; Elizabeth, 1857; Clara, 1871; and Wilhelmina, 1873;  and boys:  Frederick Jr., 1855;  Henry, 1860; Charles, 1863; and William, 1873.

Census data from 1860 indicates Frederick began his career working as a machinist.  By 1863, however, he was reported in local business directories as a partner in Goetzmann and Caring, liquor dealers located at 14 South St. Paul Street.  The following year Caring had departed the scene and Goetzmann was listed as sole proprietor of the St. Paul Street business, described as a distiller and liquor dealer.  This occurred during the waning years of the American Civil War and Rochester, like many other Northern manufacturing cities, was booming from war work.

Goetzmann met with considerable success and as the trade card above indicates had added importer and “rectifier” to his credentials.  The latter meant that he was blending raw whiskeys in order to achieve particular taste and color and bottling them as proprietary brands.  Among Goetzmann’s offerings were "Beaver Valley Rye,” "Blue Bell,” “Brookdale,” "Conemaugh Pure Rye,” "Fern Leaf,” "Spring Water,” "Star Light Pure Rye,” and "Tuscarora Pure Rye.”  Of those labels, Frederick trademarked only Brookdale in 1890.

The growth of Goetzmann’s business and the requirements of rectifying meant that he needed more space.  An artist’s rendering of his new quarters at 9 Atwater Street shows the building as three stories with large display windows in front, indicating retail as well as wholesale sales. The structure also became the centerpiece of one of the several trade cards the company issued.

Goetzmann liked to claim the title of distiller, declaring as his “The Goetzmann Distillery Co., 23rd District of Pennsylvania.”  That facility was reputed to produce his Brookdale Rye.  It was, in fact, the Guckenheimer Distillery, one of the Nation’s most notable.  Asher Guckenheimer and his family had made the Guckenheimer brand tops in America, scoring 99 out of a possible 100 points for quality at the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair and winning a gold medal.  Although Goetzmann’s advertising that this distillery was his own was a stretch, such claims were commonplace in the whiskey trade.  Wholesalers frequently made such assertions if they held major contracts for product from particular distilleries. 

As his sons matured, Frederick took them into the business.   Henry appears to have been the first.  He was on board when likely needing even more space the firm moved from 9 Atwater to 134 North Water Street.  A letterhead from 1882 shows significant differences from the earlier headquarters.  Gone are the large show windows inviting retail sales.  Now a center door allows horse-drawn wagons to carry barrels and jugs of whiskey and other spirits directly from the building to retail customers.  The depth of the structure and two side ports also suggest a substantial wholesale trade.

By this time the Goetzmanns were claiming ownership of two other distilleries, both in Kentucky.  The Spring Water Distillery was located outside Bowling Green at a place called Memphis Junction.   Apparently a relatively small plant, the owner, according to court documents, was R. B. Meyler.  The Fern Cliff Distillery in Jefferson County was located on the east side of Logan between Breckinridge and Lampton.  Originally called “Pride of Anderson Distillery” it later was renamed The Fern Cliff Distillery, with its president listed as Joseph Schwab.  It is highly doubtful that the Goetzmann’s had anything but contracts or minor investments in either of them.

By that time 67 years old and seeking other avenues for his growing wealth, Frederick was taking forays into insurance and banking.  He was a founding member and first secretary of the Rochester German Insurance Company and became a director of the German-American Bank.  Both were housed in the German Insurance Building on West Main Street, shown here.  About 1888, F. Goetzmann & Sons Co. moved there with a street entrance.  By that time another Goetzmann son, Charles, had joined Frederick and Henry in the liquor business.

In 1890, like many whiskey barons before him, Frederick decided to build a spacious house for his family and chose noted Rochester architect, Otto Block, to design it.  The resulting structure was of sufficient interest that drawings of the exterior and interior of the building were featured in the October 1890 issue of the American Architect and Building News.  The prestigious address was No. 9 in the Hyde Park District of Rochester.  The interior illustration was of an unusual fireplace, replete with fancy moulding and shelves for treasured items.

In 1899, Frederick Goetzmann, age 71, died and was buried in the Mount Hope Cemetery in Rochester.   In the 1900 census, three sons —  Henry, Charles and William —  were all listed as working for the liquor house.  Henry now was the president and chief executive officer.  Then something went terribly wrong.  Within months the business that Frederick painstakingly had built for more than 35 years was in bankruptcy.

The failure merited a substantial story in The Wine and Spirits Journal, a major trade paper.  According to the account,  company indebtedness approached $50,000 (equiv. to more than $1 million today) and its assets were only $22,515, including the value of whiskey in its warehouses.  The claims against the Goetzmanns help tell the story.  Guckenheimer Co. stated that it had delivered them goods — likely whiskey for their brands — amounting to $8,950 for promissory notes that had not been paid off.  Fern Cliff Co. alleged it delivered $11,733 worth of product on the basis for an unpaid promissory note.  P.W. Engs & Sons Co., a New York wholesaler, had the same experience with its $1,455 bill for whiskey supplies.  The Goetzmanns defaulted on all of them.

Moreover, criminal intent was alleged.  Valuable warehouse certificates, the property of Fern Cliff, reputedly had been transferred illegally to the German-American Bank to the favor of the Goetzmanns.  Worse yet, Henry had disappeared.   As related in the article:  “It is charged that Henry Goetzmann, head of the company, left home in July for parts unknown….but that he has since been drawing funds from the company.  It is claimed he has been heard from in Butte, Mont., Boston, and Chicago, but that he refuses to return to Rochester.”

In other words, Henry had left others, including his brothers, “holding the bag.” How low the House of Goetzmann had fallen!  The bankruptcy proceeded and eventually the claimants received some compensation.  The family sold their mansion and moved to a less pretentious homestead.  William and Charles, both bachelors, went into business together manufacturing pianos.  Henry eventually came back to Rochester.  Frederick Goetzmann & Sons Co., however, disappeared forever.

Both Mother Sarah Salome and William died in 1914, Charles in 1934.  Henry lived until 1921 when, apparently having contracted an incurable disease, he committed suicide. He was laid to rest in the New Hope Cemetery with other Goetzmanns, including his father.  Shown here are the gravestones of the two men: The father whose energy and intelligence guided the Goetzmann liquor house to the top and the son whose business practices are alleged to have brought it to ruin.