Five Women Found Success in Whiskey

Foreword:  The history of the liquor industry in the United States traditionally has been dominated by men, particularly in the era before National Prohibition was imposed in 1920.  Over time as I have profiled more than five hundred “pre-pro” distillers, whiskey wholesalers and saloonkeepers, I have found five women whose careers in whiskey were truly outstanding and deserve special recognition.  In keeping with my effort to bring a more analytic perspective to groups in the whiskey trade, I present these women:

Mary Dowling from Anderson County, Kentucky, not only owned and ran major distillery, shown here, she found a way to stay in the liquor business after 1920 and, in effect, thumbed her nose at Prohibition.  Kentucky-born to Irish immigrant parents, at seventeen she married a distiller at least 17 years her senior who saw her intelligence and brought her into the business.  When he died, she inherited his interest in the Waterfill & Frazier distillery, bought out his partners, and ran it successful for two decades.

Her success, however, came to screeching halt with the imposition of National Prohibition.   Federal records shown her withdrawing large quantities of whiskey from her bonded warehouse in the run up to the ban on alcohol.   Some of this whiskey she is reported to have sold to those Kentucky distillers fortunate enough to be licensed to sell liquor for “medicinal purposes.”   Other stocks, she successfully “bootlegged” for four years until Federal agents arrested her. 

After authorities were unable to convict her, Mary Dowling hatched a new -- and more successful -- business plan.  About 1926 she hired Joseph Beam, one of Kentucky’s premier distillers but now out of work, to dismantle the distillery, transport the pieces to Juarez, Mexico, reassemble it there, and resume making whiskey.  Mexico had no prohibition so the liquor production was completely legal.  Using several strategies to get her whiskey legally over the border to American consumers, she continued to operate until she died, four years short of Repeal.

Mary Jane Blair also was a Kentuckian who in 1907 inherited her late husband’s share of a distillery, this one in Marion County, shown below. She promptly bought out his partners and changed the name to the “Mary Jane Blair Distillery.”  Although the greater part of her life had been spent in the Blair home as housewife and mother, evidence is that she took an active role as president of the company, one that distilled about five months in the year.   Limited production was not unusual in the Kentucky whiskey industry,  some distillers believing that fermentation was done best only in certain months.  As the distiller Mrs. Blair hired W. P. Norris, a well known Marion County whiskey man.

For the next seven years, with the help of a son, Mary Jane Blair operated the distillery, considerably expanding its capacity.  By 1912  the plant had the mashing capacity of 118 bushels per day and four warehouses able to hold 9,000 barrels.  The Blairs produced whiskey sold under several labels; the flagship was “Old Saxon,”  as illustrated here by a back-of-the-bar bottle.  About 1914 the family sold the facility.  Mary Jane Blair died in 1922 at the age of 76.

Lovisa McCullough was a strong women’s rights advocate who successfully ran a liquor wholesale business in Pittsburgh following the death of her husband, John.  A 1888 Pittsburgh directory under the heading “Liquors, Wholesale,” lists forty-nine such establishments in the city.  All of them save one are readily identifiable as male-run companies.  The exception is “McCullough, Louisa C., 523 Liberty Av.”    That same year Lovisa became a delegate from Pittsburgh to the historic founding meeting of the International Council of Women (ICW) devoted to women’s suffrage.  It is a safe bet that she was the only liquor dealer at the convention. 

Obviously a woman of great energy, Lovisa McCullough threw herself into other causes.  A lover of animals, she was a longtime member of the Humane Society and served on the board of the Pittsburgh chapter.  She also was among women who worked toward buying up and preserving the grounds and structures at Valley Forge, Pennsylvania, where Gen. George Washington and his troops passed the winter.  A true “Daughter of the American Revolution,”  Lovisa’s grandfather may have been among those soldiers.

In 1893, after more than a half century of operation, the McCullough liquor dealership disappeared from Pittsburgh business directories.  Its demise cannot be explained by National Prohibition that still was years away and Pennsylvania was “wet” until the end.  Lovisa may have found her passion for feminist and other causes eclipsed her ardor for keeping alive the liquor enterprise.  Or it may have been advancing age.  Lovisa died in 1917, about 82 years old, and was buried beside her late husband in Allegheny Cemetery.  

Mary Moll, living in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, earned this tribute from a local newspaper: Mrs. Moll, when she took possession of the business, had many obstacles to overcome but, being a woman of wonderful business tact, she bravely fought the many unpleasant features connected with the business and successfully built up a trade far superior to any in this country.”  

Like the other women here, after her husband died in 1891 Mary inherited his wholesale whiskey trade but also his three daughters from a prior marriage.  They are shown at the family home, Mary at far right.  Rejecting advice by friends to sell the business, she set out not only to run the liquor dealership, but also to expand it.  Her first instinct was to go on the road as a “drummer,”  and give customers and potential customers her personal attention to make sales.  The strategy worked and she was credited with ultimately tripling the business.   After three years, however, Mary tired of traveling.  Looking at the costs-benefits she concluded she could build her trade more effectively by staying home and working to keep prices low.

Eventually,  Mary Moll was selling three hundred barrels of whiskey a year.  Although not a rectifier, that is a dealer mixing and blending her own brands, she was decanting the barrels into her own embossed glass containers, shown left.  Those barrels would have resulted in her selling 53,400 quarts of whiskey, an impressive number for any liquor house.  Mary Moll died in 1910 while still running her business. She was 64.

When her husband died in 1912, Catherine Klausman was left with five minor children, a saloon, a liquor store, and a small hotel, together known as “The German House,”  shown here.  She hesitated not a moment in taking over their management.  As a result, “Mrs. Klausman” as she was respectfully known in St. Mary’s, Pennsylvania, put her mark on selling whiskey.  With the help of her bartender, Mrs. Klausman not only kept all the businesses open, she prospered by selling both at wholesale and retail her own brands of whiskey.   

Taking a leaf from the liquor wholesalers and rectifiers of the time, she bought whiskey from both Pennsylvania and Kentucky, sometimes blending the spirits, bottling them and then applying her own labels.   My favorite is Mrs. Klausman’s “Corn Whiskey,” with its predominantly yellow label showing a rural distillery and a shock of corn, a design worthy of one of the big liquor outfits.

In 1920, however, National Prohibition brought a close to the thriving business she was doing in whiskey sales.  Moreover, the hotel bar no longer could serve alcohol.  Regardless of these setbacks, she persevered in running the German House through the 1930s.  No evidence exists that after repeal of National Prohibition in 1934, she went back to liquor sales.  When Catherine died in 1963, at the age of 88, she was buried next to her late husband in the St. Marys Cemetery.  The German House remains standing today as part of the town’s historic district on Railroad Street. 

These five women helped pave the way for the many women who have engaged in  the whiskey trade since Prohibition and today fill some of the top spots in the Nation’s liquor industry.  

Note:  Author Fred Minnick has written an interesting book on “Whiskey Women,” detailing the effects that women, past and present, have had on the American distilled spirits business.  It was through his writing that I came upon Mary Jane Blair.  Minnick failed, however, to pick up on his radar the other four.  I am hopeful that this piece will bring these other outstanding “whiskey women” the attention they also justly deserve.   For those interested in reading my fuller biographies of each woman, they are:   Blair, June 2, 2014;  Dowling, January 22, 2014; Klausman, Dec. 12, 2015;  McCulloch, Jan. 14, 2017; and Moll, Oct 28, 2015

  

  

How Mary Dowling Outwitted National Prohibition

 Having for several years tried to find a female who played an important role as a “whiskey man” in America,  I have at last come across an extraordinary woman.  She is Mary Dowling of Anderson County, Kentucky.  Not only did she own and run a major distillery, shown above, she found a way to stay in the liquor business after 1920 and, in effect, thumbed her nose at National Prohibition.

She was born Mary Murphy in 1858 in the State of Kentucky, the daughter of Irish immigrants.  Little of her girlhood or education is recorded until she reached the age of 17 when in 1875  she married a man at least 17 years her senior.   His name was John Dowling.  They would have nine children of whom eight would live to maturity.

Born in Ireland in 1841, John Dowling had come to the United States with a brother, Edward, and was already established in the Kentucky whiskey trade at the time of their marriage.  He was a partner in a distillery in Anderson County, located on Bailey’s Run about four miles south of Lawrenceburg Courthouse.  The facility had been built in 1810 and after several owners the facility had come into the hands of J. M. Waterfill and G.G Frazier during the Civil War.  They produced a brand of whiskey they called “Waterfill & Frazier.”

During the early 1880s Dowling joined the original partners and the firm became Waterfill, Dowling & Company.  At the time the distillery was mashing 60 bushels a day and had a storage capacity for about 3,000 barrels for aging the whiskey.  Over the next few years the facilities were greatly expanded.  By 1890 mashing capacity had been increased to 125 bushels and warehouse capacity exceeded 9,000 barrels.  Insurance records from 1892 noted that the entire distillery was ironclad with metal or slate roofs, including four bonded warehouses and one “free” (from Federal regulation) warehouse.  Slops from the fermentation process were being used to feed hogs that were housed in pens near the still house.

By 1890 the Anderson County distillery was mashing 250 bushels per day and had a warehouse capacity for 21,000 barrels.   Over the years John Dowling increased his ownership of the facility and in early in the 1900s became the full owner, with his brother Edward assisting him.  They kept the “Waterfill & Frazier” name for their flagship brand and also did business as the Pilgrimage Distilling Co., with offices in Cincinnati.  About the same time, apparently recognizing the business acumen of his wife, John brought Mary into the company.   Not long after,  he died at age 61.  His grieving widow inherited the firm and its management, becoming one of a handful of women in that era to run a major distillery.

During ensuing years,  Mary Dowling became part of Kentucky whiskey lore in her evident ability to control a major operation.   Even a major fire in 1904 that destroyed the distillery did not deter her and the facility was quickly rebuilt.  When Mary’s sons came to maturity, they too were brought into the business.  As her reputation as a businesswoman rose in Anderson County, she followed other economic opportunities.  She became a founding stockholder of the Anderson National Bank in 1907, capitalized at $100,000.  Mary was not, however, given a seat on the bank board.

Mary’s success of almost two decades, however, came to screeching halt with the imposition of National Prohibition.   Federal records shown her withdrawing large quantities of whiskey from her bonded warehouse in the run up to the ban on alcohol.   Some of this whiskey she is reported to have sold to those Kentucky distillers fortunate enough to be licensed to sell liquor for “medicinal purposes.”   Other stocks, it would appear, she was bootlegging.  It was during this period, I assume, that she earned the reputation for being “mysterious” and caused at least one writer to term her “infamous.”

Her illegal business worked for about four years until 1924 when revenue agents set a trap for the Dowlings, who were operating both out of their home and from an office next to two distillery warehouses, supposedly sealed, in which large quantities of liquor were stored.  Federal agents arrived with two “turncoat” bootleggers in their automobiles, men who had done business with Mary in the past.   The agents watched as the bootleggers entered the house and bought out two sacks of whiskey, each containing a dozen bottles.   They watched as the sacks were placed in one of the autos, then searched and seized them, as their stool -pigeons reputedly ‘fessed up.  The “sting” had worked. The agents thereupon entered the Dowling home with search warrants.

In the basement they found and sized 478 sacks, each holding 12 quarts of whiskey, exactly like the ones deposited in the bootlegger’s car.  They seized the liquor and arrested members of the Dowling family, including three of Mary’s sons. This was in spite of her contention, as a court record later narrated, that the whiskey had been there before Prohibition and was “to be for the use of family and guests, whom she entertained on a large scale.”

The Dowlings were prosecuted for a conspiracy to possess, transport, and sell intoxicating liquors in violation of the National Prohibition Act. There ensued three years of court cases both in Kentucky and Federal courts as the Dowlings through their attorneys contended that the search warrant was flawed, that criminal charges should be dropped,  and the seized liquor returned.  An initial trial was adjourned when Mary Dowling became sick.  The indictment was renewed by the government in 1925 and this time the Dowlings were convicted.   Then fate intervened.  Upon the Dowlings' appeal of the conviction to the U.S. Sixth Court of Appeals, it was found that the stenographer who had taken the record of the earlier trial had died and no one could read his notes. That was enough for the Circuit Court and they threw out the convictions.

By this time Mary Dowling had hatched a new -- and more successful -- business plan.  About 1926 she hired Joseph Beam, one of Kentucky’s premier distillers but now out of work, to dismantle the Waterfill & Frazier distillery, transport the pieces to Juarez, Mexico, reassemble it there, and resume making whiskey.  Mexico had no prohibition so the liquor production was completely legal.  Beam, shown right, was all too glad to oblige.  With two of his seven sons, Otis and Harry, he decamped South of the Border and built the facility shown here on a postcard.  They called it the “Dowling Mexican” (D.M.) Distillery.  Beam stayed several years on the job and a relative said his son Harry “essentially grew up in Mexico.”

The primary market for this Waterfill & Frazier whiskey was in Mexico and Central and South America.  Compared to the local whiskeys,  Mary Dowling’s “bourbon,” (actually a blend) was a quality product and highly successful.  As a result a number of artifacts bearing Spanish language and theme,  particularly trip trays, can be found on auction sites.

Because Juarez, in the state of Chihuahua is so close to the U.S. border,  thirsty American tourists also could enjoy it and even, as an ad hinted, bring a bottle or two with them back to the U.S.  There also is evidence that Mary Dowling had found other ways to get her whiskey to the American consumer.  A letter exists to her from Julian Van Winkle, one of those lucky distillers with a “medicinal” license.  He complained that his sales reps were having trouble selling her Kentucky-made Waterfill & Frazier Bourbon because of competition from other quarters selling her Mexican product.  Van Winkle did not even hint at how Mexican bourbon might have made it onto the legal market in the United States.   He knew Mary already knew.

In 1930, four years short of Repeal,  Mary Dowling died and was laid to rest in Section 5 of the Lawrenceburg Cemetery in Anderson County.   In the grave next to her is John Dowling whom she outlived by 27 years. As shown here, the remaining buildings of the Anderson County  distillery were allowed to decay as the forest grew up around them.  After the end of Prohibition in 1934,  one of Mary’s sons,  also named John, built a new distillery at Fisherville, just outside Louisville at Echo Trail at Ford’s Fork.  Sometime later he sold the property to a Kentuckian who closed the facility but kept the Waterfill & Frazier brand name and label design, transferring both to Bardstown where he had another distillery.  Thus some U.S. bottles and artifacts designated “Waterfill & Frazier” are post-Prohibition.

Although she died before witnessing Repeal, Mary Dowling had forged a path for women  -- and men --  in whiskey history that may never be surpassed.  Unlike most of the male Kentucky distillers who quietly shut down, Mary actively rebelled against the “Dry Laws” and after one attempt to circumvent them proved to be problematic, created a second strategy that succeeded beyond all expectations.  Call her “mysterious" or “infamous,” as some have done,  I call her a genius for having thumbed her nose at National Prohibition and beaten it.