Whiskey Men Who Died in Auto Accidents

Foreword:   As a police reporter on an Ohio daily newspaper years ago I was regularly on the site of automobile accidents.  Often drinking was involved and occasionally there was a fatality.  As a result I can understand it might be thought ironic by some people that liquor dealers themselves have been killed in car crashes.  Presented here are vignettes of three such whiskey men who under very different circumstances lost their lives in motor vehicles. 

In an 1866 letter, Mark Twain called Sacramento the “City of Saloons,” claiming they were so numerous that: “You can just shut your eyes, march into the first door you come to and call for a drink, and the chances are that you will get it.”  George Wissemann ran one of those establishments and also sold whiskey to others saloons with significant  success — until his untimely end.  

A 20-year-old immigrant from Germany, Wissemann spent three years in an Ohio quarry digging rocks before heading to California where he found employment in a Sacramento saloon.  Showing a real talent for the whiskey trade, he eventually owned a prosperous liquor house and a number of saloons.  Financial success brought him social recognition as a leading member of the local Masons and Elks Lodge.  Shown here, Wissemann was an active Republican, engaged in both local and state politics although never seeking office himself. 

Wissemann was a member of the Canvasback Gun Club, about 12 miles from Sacramento.  In early November 1909 he decided to ride out to the club with his son for some duck shooting.  His wife Mary advised against it, worried that their son was ill;  George thought the fresh air would do the boy good.  They hitched up the horse and buggy and set off.  Wissemann is shown here with a team of horses in front of his establishment.

As they approached the gun club, a friend who may just have bought his first automobile, urged them to leave the buggy and join him in the motor car.  The driver lost control somewhere on or near the club grounds and crashed, throwing both Wissemanns out of the vehicle.  George may have been killed instantly.   His body, badly bruised and cut, was taken to the club headquarters where, at the age of 52, he formally was declared to be dead.  George Jr. was rendered comatose for several days but recovered.  

Call it the ultimate irony: A saloonkeeper killed by a drunken driver. Sadly, that was the fate of Martin Lynch of Bristol, Virginia and Tennessee, shown left, a man who owned two saloons in that dual-state city and was the source of regionally popular whiskey brands. He first surfaced with his own establishment about 1908, at age 31 owning and operating a saloon on Bristol’s Front Street, the first of several.  

Lynch also became a “rectifier,” that is, blending raw whiskeys and perhaps other ingredients in back room in order to achieve desired taste, color and smoothness.  He bottled this liquor under his own labels and marketed it regionally through mail order sales. Among Lynch brands were “Green Spring Corn,” “Blue Diamond Corn,” and “Parkwood,” the last sold as a bourbon but likely was a blend.  His flagship brand was “Cherokee Corn.”

When Virginia went “dry” in 1916, with profits from his liquor trade, Lynch purchased a large farm just off U.S. 11 where he produced dairy and beef cattle, opening a market in Bristol.  The photo right of Martin as a proud grandparent may have been taken only shortly before his death. In August 1953, Lynch, now about 75 years old, was driving onto the highway near his farm when he was struck by a speeding automobile.  Rushed to Bristol Memorial Hospital, he was declared dead, the cause a “concussion of the brain.” The other driver was found to be intoxicated.  

A Southerner whose life revolved around the “deep water” of the Gulf of Mexico, Harry Hoyle was a successful liquor merchant, who persisted in selling liquor in the face of prohibitionary forces that forced him from Mississippi to Louisiana.  In New Orleans Hoyle found tolerance and success for his whiskey trade but suffered an untimely fate that ultimately orphaned his children.  

By 1910, Hoyle was recorded in New Orleans business directories operating saloons and liquor stores at 326 Magazine and 174 Rampart Streets and an outlet in Slidell, Louisiana, from which he was sending liquor legally by railway express back to his old customers in Mississippi.  His flagship brand was "Deep Water Route Whiskey." He also bought a major share of the National Brewery of New Orleans and became a director.

Events would soon change everything for Hoyle and his family.  In mid-February 1914, after attending a party where alcohol likely was served, Harry with three friends was taking what the press called an after-midnight “joy ride” on the Chef Menteur Road along a New Orleans bayou.  Hoyle was in the rear “rumble seat” when the car went out of control, hit the incline of the canal and turned over.  Although others were only slightly injured in the crash, Hoyle was killed. 

According to a press account:  “The men who had been extricated managed to draw the body of Harry Hoyle out from under the machine.  As they pulled it out the head fell loosely about the shoulders and they feared the worse….It is the opinion of the medical authorities that he died instantly when the heavy back of the machine pinned his neck to the ground.”   The whiskey man was only 34 years old.  

The newspapers noted Hoyle left six children, all under 14 years old.  Moreover,  his widow was pregnant with twins, born the June after her husband died.  Tragedy followed tragedy.   In mid-January 1919, one of the twins died.  Four days later the baby girl was followed in death by her mother, leaving the Hoyle children orphaned, the youngest only two.  An email from Hoyle’s great-granddaughter indicates that the surviving seven children were taken into the homes of aunts and uncles who raised them.

Note:  These incidents were drawn from more extensive biographies of each of the men that previously have appeared on this blog:  George Wissemann, July 18, 2016;  John Lynch, October 12, 2015; and Harry Hoyle, June 26, 2019.

The Sad Irony of Bristol’s Martin Lynch

 

Call it the ultimate irony:  A saloonkeeper killed by a drunken driver.  Sadly, that was the fate of Martin Lynch of Bristol, Virginia and Tennessee, shown left, a man who owned two saloons and was the source of regionally popular whiskey brands.

Born in May 1876, 1877, or 1878 —  sources differ — Lynch was the son of Eugene and Catherine Lyons Lynch.  His birthplace appears to have been a small Tennessee community about 170 miles west of Bristol.  It was called Deer Lodge, a mountain resort town with two hotels, a scattering of houses and a few businesses. Finding it to be too limiting for a young man with ambition, Lynch moved as a young man to Bristol, a city that straddles the state line between Tennessee and Virginia. 

As indicated by photo below that shows a row of liquor establishments lining the main street —  Southern Wine & Liquor,  Rambis Saloon, Mail Order Liquor — Bristol was a town teeming with saloons, wholesale and retail liquor dealers, and restaurants and hotels selling alcohol.  Lynch likely served an apprenticeship working in some of the many.  He first surfaced with his own establishment about age 31, owning and operating a saloon on Front Street.  He subsequently opened a second drinking establishment on Bristol’s State Street. 

Lynch was also a “rectifier,” that is, blending raw whiskeys and perhaps other ingredients in a back room in order achieve desired taste, color and smoothness.  He bottled this liquor under his own labels and marketed it locally and regionally through mail order sales.   Among Lynch brands were “Green Spring Corn,” “Blue Diamond Corn,”  and Parkwood,”  the last sold as a bourbon but likely was a blend.  His flagship brand was “Cherokee Corn.”  He failed to register any of these names with the Patent and Trademark office.  Lynch used glass containers for his retail sales, ranging in size from gallon jugs to quarts and pint flasks.

Lynch was finding that running saloons could be problematic.  In May 1911 the local press reported that he had closed up his saloon on Front Street and was consolidating it with the State Street saloon.   In February 1913 the latter establishment was robbed four times, but each time only whiskey was reported stolen.  In 1914, as reported in the local press, Lynch re-opened the Front Street business with both himself and his brother, Eugene, listed as managers on the license application.  About the same time Lynch applied for and got a beer license.  By this time prohibitionary forces in Bristol had jacked up the annual cost to $1,000 — equivalent to $25,000 today.  Saloonkeepers had no choice, either buy the licenses or go out of business.

A bachelor until the age of about 37, in 1915 Martin married a woman some sixteen years younger than he.  She was Rosemary M. Willett and their nuptials took place in the Virginia half of Bristol.   Accord to records, the couple had four children,  Catherine, Martin Jr., Joseph, and Mary, who died in infancy.  

Like many liquor dealers Lynch was a source of giveaway items to favored customers.  His were generally mini-jugs, as two the shown here.  There was nothing to be given away to appease the forces of Prohibition, however, and little by little avenues of sales closed down.  The final blow came in 1916 when Virginia voted statewide prohibition of alcohol.  Lynch attempted to make a go of the situation by selling “near beer.”  One was Reif’s Special, advertised as a “temperance drink” and “a pure liquid food.”  Reif’s boasted that it had the “snappy flavor and foaming goodness of the hops with the alcohol left out.”  Alcohol substitutes proved unprofitable and Lynch finally was forced to shut the doors of his business.

With his profits from the liquor trade, however, he earlier had purchased a large farm just off Highway US 11, near Bristol. He built a large home there for his family.  He also raised cattle and did some farming.  Thus it may have been natural for him to move from liquor to food.  Martin Lynch is listed in Bristol directories during the 1920s, under the heading: “Butter, Eggs, & Cheese” at No. 27 City Market House. He also appears to have started a dairy, listed as Lynch Dairy, located at several addresses from 1929 into the 1940s.  A 1944 directory lists the Martin Lynch Meat Market at 614 Cumberland Road on the Virginia side of Bristol.

By this time, as shown here, Lynch had been presented with a grandchild by his daughter, Catherine.  This photo of a proud grandparent may have been taken only shortly before his death.  He was killed in an automobile accident in August 1953.   Lynch, now about 75 years old, was turning onto the highway near his home when his car was struck by a speeding drunken driver.  He was rushed to Bristol Memorial Hospital where he was declared dead, the cause a “concussion of the brain.”  The other driver was found to be intoxicated but records do not indicate he was charged with a homicide.

As his widow, Rosemary, three children and five grandchildren, and other relatives and friends looked on,  Martin Lynch was laid to rest — a sad and ironic end to the life of a notable whiskey man.