John Withers: This Jeweler Found a Gold Ring in Whiskey

                                
When John Withers, shown here in maturity, was growing up in a distilling family,  he may have thought there were better ways to make a living and so he became a jeweler.   After working about 23 years at that trade he apparently decided that the real “gold ring” was captured by making whiskey.  And so he did.

Our subject was born in 1873 to J. M. and Ellen E. (Moore) Withers in Alexandria County, Illinois.  His ancestors were North Carolinians and, according to a biographer, “all of his forefathers” were whiskey men.  These included his father, a distiller, who had moved North to the southern most part of Illinois.   The boy Withers was educated in the local public schools and, eschewing the liquor trade,  served an apprenticeship with a jeweler and there learned the craft.  In 1892, at age 19 and still single, he moved across the Mississippi, to Allenville, Missouri, a small village in Cape Girardeau County.

Initially Withers worked as a jeweler in Allenville.  That town was experiencing a small economic boom.  It had several things going its way: It was on high ground on the banks of Whitewater Creek; it was on a major highway to the Southwest United States; it was about a day’s run for covered wagons coming from Cape Girardeau and the Mississippi River, and it was on a mainline railroad that ran from St. Louis and ended on a year-around port on the Mississippi.  A railroad tycoon named Allen thought the site would someday be a “metropolis” and invested in land there.  The inhabitants accordingly named the town after him.  At the time Withers came to town, Allenville boasted a population of  about 450 and had a number of businesses, including a newspaper, bank, milling company, eight stores and three saloons.

Withers’ early years were spent working in Allenville as a jeweler.  There in 1903, he found a wife, Helen E. (sometimes given as Ellen) Adams, like himself born in Illinois.  The couple would go on to have six children, four sons and two daughters.   Although he appears to have been successful as a jeweler, the sparse population of his town and region meant a limited customer base.  Withers began to look around for other opportunities.  One presented itself in 1906 that was right under his nose in Allenville.  A man named J. D. Dameron, whose name appears on a scratch jug here, had established the only distillery in town about 1892.  After 14 years in business Dameron was interested in selling and Withers bought him out.   He renamed it the J.A. Withers Company.

After purchasing the property, he determined to expand the facility and called upon his father to help him construct the distillery building seen here.  Withers bought new equipment and  enlarged the still.  He employed a a crew of locals, seen below, to man the facility.  The revamped distillery had the capacity to convert four to five thousand bushels of corn and rye into whiskey annually and averaged an output of two barrels a day. One can imagine the workers rolling out barrels of whiskey with the Withers brand, shown here, one that noted registration with the Federal Government as Distillery No. 2 in the First District of Missouri.  Withers also used jug containers to hold his product, most of which was only moderately aged (3 years) corn whiskey.  He called it “Withers.”

John proved to be an energetic merchandiser.  He took full advantage of the availability of a railway express office in Allenville to solicit mail orders from up and down the line and, as his whiskey gained popularity, beyond.   Like many of his big city competitors,  he had an eye for giving items away to favored customers.   They included a celluloid covered match case that had his ad on one side, his picture on the other. Withers also gave away celluloid pocket mirrors that claimed his whiskey was “double distilled.”  While many distillers only gifted shot glasses, he also provided two larger glasses,  one that seems meant for medicine, the other for highballs.  Both items claim the company to be a “Manufacturer of High Grade Whiskey.” 

Withers found a good customer base locally and, as Southern and  Western states increasingly were going dry, a vigorous and growing mail order business.  According to a contemporary account:  “A large percentage of his output is disposed of through the mail order route.  Nearly every train that pulls out of Allenville carries with it some of the liquor manufactured by J. A. Withers, in jugs or barrels.”

By 1914 when a local newspaper featured Withers in an article,  his was the remaining distillery of out of eight originally in the county.   He was described as a manager with a strong and sober  hand.  The account said:  “While Mr. Withers makes whiskey and sells it, he himself uses the same very sparingly.  He has never permitted any rough house tactics around his place, and there are never any fights or disturbances near his establishment.  No accidents nor mishaps, resulting from the use of liquor, have ever happened in this distillery.”

With a profitable business and a comfortable life,  Withers was able to branch out in his interests.  He bought a 160 acre farm in Arkansas, perhaps to insure a secure supply of  corn for his still.  In 1911 he joined with other Allenville businessmen to found a bank on the outskirts of Allenville near the Iron Mountain Railroad,  apparently believing that the existing banks were inadequate to community needs.  

In a short time the stock was all taken and within a year a substantial brick building was erected.  As a founder and major investor,  Withers was made a vice president. He also served as president of the Allenville Village Board for two years and as a member of the local Board of Education.  Like many whiskey men, he was a Democrat in politics and a Mason in his fraternal socializing.   He was said to have liked hunting and fishing but apparently only occasionally could find the time.

With the coming of the motor car,  Withers discovered a new passion.  He bought an expensive convertible machine, one in which he could seat his entire family of eight.  According to one account, the family “takes delight in taking a spin in the high-powered car that Mr. Withers owns and operates.”  There is a marvelous 1913 photograph of the Withers clan in their car.  Sitting proudly in the front seat is Distiller John, his wife and baby Opal.  In the back seat, seemingly somewhat crowded, are Roy, Adam, Eddie, Myrtle and Waldo.  Note that the steering wheel is on the right side. 

Missouri was a good state for making and selling whiskey.  During the height of the Temperance movement in the late-19th century and early-20th century, Missouri failed to implement statewide prohibition.  The voters of the state rejected going “dry” in three separate initiative elections in 1910, 1912, and 1918. When temperance crusader Carrie A. Nation entered a bar in Kansas City in 1901 and began to smash liquor bottles with her hatchet, she was promptly arrested and fined $500 (more than $13,000 in 2013 dollars) The  judge stayed the penalty as long as she agreed to leave Missouri and never return. She never came back. The Missouri General Assembly did ratify the 18th Amendment in 1919, but only after it already had been approved by sufficient states to become part of the Constitution.

Nevertheless, Withers would feel Prohibition pressures.  In 1913 Congress passed the Webb-Kenyon Act that forbid mail order sales into dry areas.   His trade in neighboring  states like Kansas and Oklahoma gradually dried up as the law passed legal tests.  In 1919 he was forced to shut down all distilling operations with the advent of National Prohibition.  But his interest in the motor car and his ample financial means furnished him with a second career.   He became a co-owner of the Chevrolet dealership in Cape Girardeau County.  Withers was engaged in that business in 1925 when he died at the fairly young age of 52.  While some of his children had grown to adulthood, he left a grieving widow at home to care for the younger ones.

My research has not discovered an obituary.  Withers clearly was a highly successful distiller and by his conversion from handling jewels to making whiskey truly caught himself the proverbial “gold ring.”  As a final encomium, a line from his 1914 newspaper biography may suffice.  It stated that John Withers  “... is regarded as a good fellow by his friends and acquaintances.”

Note:   This article is highly dependent upon information provided on a website maintained by Mr. Charles Hoots, who has devoted it to the history of Allenville and provides a highly informative post about Withers.  He also includes the 1914 article in an anniversary edition of the Cape Girardeau Republican that featured the distiller.  The black and white photos are from that story and other images of artifacts are from Mr. Hoots and other collections.











 

Anson Hotaling of San Fran: God, Whiskey and Fire

 The earthquake and subsequently burning of San Francisco in 1906 was greeted by a good many clergymen as divine retribution for the city’s wicked, wicked ways. The fact that houses of worship were incinerated right along with everything else — while a huge whiskey warehouse was spared — inspired this immediate verse by local poet and wit Charles Kellogg Field:

'If, as they say, God spanked the town

For being over frisky,

Why did He burn the churches down

And save Hotaling's whiskey?'"

The ironies might have been even stronger had Field, the clergymen and his fellow San Franciscans been more aware of Anson P. Hotaling’s religious views.  His middle initial stood for “Parsons” but he was far from being a traditional in his theological ideas.  That story comes later.  First the context:

Hotaling, shown here in maturity,  was born in 1828 in New Baltimore, a town in Green County, New York.  He was of Knickerbocker Dutch stock on his father’s side.  His mother was a  “Parsons,”  and an immigrant from England.  Anson attended local schools but left during his teen years to work on his father’s farm but soon found other pursuits more attractive.  After clerking briefly in a country store, at about age 20, he discovered photography, a pursuit that was still in its infancy.  Buying good equipment, he traveled throughout New York State taking portraits with as a biographer says “much pecuniary and professional success.”


Soon that occupation began to pale and in 1852, age 24, Hotaling sailed from New York to California in the ship “Racehound,” along with other men joining the Gold Rush.  Enroute the ship was forced to dock for an extended period at Valparaiso, Chile, for repairs and refitting.   Hotaling enjoyed the Latin lifestyle and determined to stay.  Just before the ship sailed again, he changed his mind and went along to join the thousands hoping to “get rich quick” in the California placer mines.  Moiling for gold did not suit him long and he went back to clerking,  this time in a San Francisco liquor store owned by W.J. Griffin, located at the corner of Sansome and Jackson Streets. There Hotaling found his true calling.

Working for Griffin for several years and amassing a substantial amount of capital, in 1865 the youth bought out his employer and opened his own wholesale liquor business under the name “A.P. Hotaling & Co.”   About the same period Anson also  found time to marry.  His  bride was Lavinia Linen, the daughter of James Linen, a well known San Francisco writer and poet.  She was sixteen years Hotaling’s junior.  They would have four sons.

Hotaling remained at the Sansome and Jackson address for eight years and then, needing larger quarters,  he moved to 429-439 Jackson, where the firm remained for the rest of its business life.  A company sign shows his complex of buildings straddling a major street.  The one on the left was his sales office; on the right his warehouse.   By 1880 he was the largest liquor wholesaler in San Francisco  with a sales volume of 1,750 barrels annually.



With his San Francisco success,  Hotaling opened offices in other major West Coast cities. Directories indicate that he maintained a retail outlet in Seattle, Washington, on Commercial Street from 1889 to 1893, and in Portland, Oregon, from 1875 to 1887, at addresses on Front and subsequently North First Streets.   An embossed bottle from Portland that held “J. H. Cutter Whiskey” is shown here.  Cutter was Hotaling’s flagship brand for many years, vigorously advertised through newspaper ads and bar signs.  The sign shown here is an unusual three dimensional display. 

In 1903 the A.P. Hotaling Company sold the rights to the Cutter name to Sherwood and Sherwood.   After that the company’s principal brand became “Old Kirk.”  It was a proprietary brand, trademarked with the government in 1906.  Over the years Hotaling’s firm also featured other labels, including “Hotalings Special Reserve,” “O.P.S. Bourbon,”  “St. George,”  “OK A No. 1 Old Bourbon,” and the interestingly named, “Death to Imitators.”

Old Kirk was vigorously marketed.  The company provided bar signs that could be as topical as the Great White Fleet. shown below.  That was the popular nickname for the United States Navy battle group that completed a circumnavigation of the globe from December 1907 to February 1909 by order of U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt.  Another sign advertising “Old Kirk” was in medieval-looking stained glass.   A. P. Hotaling & Co. also provided a number of giveaways to favored customers, including back of the bar bottles and, to retail customers,  medallions that might be used as watch fobs or good luck charms.


Hotaling himself became a well known figure in San Francisco, an active member of both the Old Fellows and Masonic organizations.  His write-up covered more than two full pages of an 1881 book entitled “Contemporary Biographies of California’s Representative Men.”  That author, without mentioning specific names, affirmed that Hotaling was active in several  benevolent organizations and also supported leading literary and art associations of San Francisco.

The biographer also devoted considerable time to Anson’s religious beliefs, stating:  “Contact with the world, and especially the world of California, in Mr. Hotalings case, as in that of many others, has lead to extreme latitudinarianism....”  That term, meaning no taste for organized religion, was not going to endear this whiskey man to local clergy.  The writer had more to say about Hotaling’s theology:  “He believes that religion is a life,not a creed; that only a soul at liberty can be a liberal soul;  that stiff zeal and uncompassionate rigor do not constitute genuine piety;  that the religion most needed is that which takes hold on the daily life about us, and promotes just dealing between man and man.”  All the more for folks later to wonder why the churches burned and Hotaling’s whiskey was spared. 

Moreover, virtually every other major stock of whiskey in San Francisco had been destroyed.  Hotalings' salvation may have been by the grace of God, but there also were more earthbound causes.   According to accounts, the warehouse was threatened and saved three times:  First by a fireman who hacked off smoldering roof cornices.  Second by a single length of hose from a Navy fireboat in San Francisco Bay that firefighters dragged over the ridge of Telegraph Hill for over a mile and eleven blocks to the Jackson street site. The final salvation was a bucket brigade, many of the participants Hotaling's workers, who slopped a compote of sewage and sea water on the structure from an adjacent site.   The mixture steamed and stunk as it hit the hot exterior but as one writer reported, “the muck did the trick.”  Moreover, while other liquor dealers in the city suffered from looting,  authorities allowed the Hotalings to hire a hundred men to stand guard. The firm lost nothing.


Unfortunately Anson Hotaling was not around to witness this excitement.  He died in 1899, much mourned by his widow, Lavinia, and four sons.   Hotaling had been bringing his boys into the firm as they matured.  Son Richard Hotaling, assisted by his brother Fred, was able to take over the business and appears to have run it with the same skill as his father.  The business continued to prosper at its Jackson Street address until shut down by National Prohibition in 1919.  Subsequently a bronze tablet with Field’s verse on it was attached to the Hotaling warehouse where it can still be found.  In addition, nearby Jones Alley was later renamed Hotaling Way.   Anson, the “latitudinarian” on whom Heaven smiled, may be gone but not forgotten in San Francisco.

Note:  The images of Hotaling signs are from the website and collection of Michael Dolcini, whose untimely death at an early age has been reported.  Much of the material on Anson Hotaling, including his religious views, are from “Contemporary Biographies of California’s Representative Men,” published in 1881, principal author Hubert H. Bancroft.

Andrew Hatke’s Window Faced the South

A favorite country song of mine is “My Window Faces the South,” which extols the pleasures and benefits of Dixieland.   Andrew Hatke of Richmond, Virginia, had a liquor sales window that faced the South and thereby achieved considerable prosperity.

Hatke was an German immigrant to the United States,  his birthplace in 1834 given as Hoerstal, Westphalia.   When he came to the United States is a fact not recorded in census data.  Sometimes his name was given as “Henry (Heinrich) Andrew Hatke.”  He seems to have dropped the Henry somewhere along the line.

Hatke claims to have started in business in Richmond in 1867, in the wake of the Civil War.   Richmond had suffered significant damage during the conflict and the social and cultural life of the city had been badly disrupted.  One result was a proliferation of drinking establishments.   Hatke’s saloon was among them.   The 1880 census finds him living in Richmond, with his wife,  Anna (nee Sitterding), also from German immigrant stock.  They had three
children at the time,  Mary,  Lewis and Henry.  A fourth child, Alphonso, would be born in 1886.

The 1880 census lists Hatke as as a grocer and barkeeper. It is likely that he was more than both.  In those days it was standard practice for grocers to be rectifying (blending) whiskey in their back rooms and offering it to the public.   Since he also had a drinking establishment on premises, the sign shown here,  it would be natural for Hatke to whip up his own whiskey from raw liquor supplied by distilleries elsewhere.

As the 19th Century progressed, more and more localities in the American Southland were voting to go “dry,”  as a result of adopting local option laws.  If you lived in one of those towns no alcoholic drinks were easily available.  An important exception was liquor arriving through the mails.   While localities might like to keep out mail order booze, local, state, and federal courts had ruled repeatedly that such sales were legal, despite local prohibitions,  usually citing the Interstate Commerce Clause of the Constitution.

Hatke and other Richmond liquor dealers were in the right place at the right time to seize this opportunity.   Richmond was strategically placed to serve the thirsty population of the South.  The Virginia capital was a major hub for three important railroads.  The Seaboard Air Line Railroad, headquartered in Portsmouth, Virginia, had a main track that ran from Richmond, via Raleigh, North Carolina;  Columbia, South Carolina; and Savannah, Georgia, to Jacksonville, Florida.  Seaboard competed with the Atlantic Coast Line that originated at Petersburg, Virginia, and went south.

A third major competitor was Southern Railway. This line came into existence in 1894 through the merger of the Richmond and Danville system, the Memphis and Charleston Railroad,  and the East Tennessee, Virginia and Georgia Railroad.  It operated 4,400 miles of track, primarily in Dixie.   Shown here is an 1895 map of The Southern Railway listing the hundreds of town it served.  The maps of the other two railroads would show the similar wide coverage.  In short, there was scarcely a Southern hamlet or town that was not available, via its freight office, to Hatke’s liquor.

Unlike transcontinental railroads that had a reputation for price gouging,  competition along the Atlantic coast made for lower freight rates.  Moreover, Virginia had adopted a regulatory system that put fewer restrictions on railroads.  Rail “barons” for their part were interested in maintaining the favorable  state climate and kept their prices moderated.  Hatke’s company,  incorporated as A. Hatke & Co., and located at  800-806 East Cary Street,  concentrated on mail order sales.  The U.S. mails moved rapidly up and down the East Coast insuring that a thirsty Georgia or North Carolina customer ordering whiskey from Richmond would not have to wait too long for supplies.

Hatke’s flagship brand was “Richmond Rye.” He sent some of his whiskey in embossed glass flasks, usually a dozen to a box.  More often, however, he packaged his whiskey in ceramic jugs of quart, gallon or even two gallon size. From the striking variety of these containers we can assume he kept Henrico and surrounding county potteries very busy.  Some are in a saltglaze with dark underglaze lettering.   A variety were “shoulder jugs” with Albany slip tops and necks.   Others have brown tops with a blue cobalt stenciled label.

Note the wording on one jug:  “Next to the Express Office.”  Obviously a subtle guarantee that shipment would be swift.   Selling whiskey this way, however, was not without its pitfalls.  The localities with bans on alcohol frequently charged liquor dealers with an assortment of offenses with the aim of curbing the mail order traffic.   In 1913, Hatke’s  company was hailed into Superior Court of Craven County, North Carolina.   The charge was that in 1911 it had sold a case of whiskey to Carl Spencer, a local, identified as “...a minor...under 21 years of age and unmarried....”   The booze had been duly delivered via the Seaboard Air Line Railroad.  When the jury offered a convoluted decision but in the end did not convict Hatke, the judge directed a verdict of not guilty. 

The Craven County prosecutor,  however, would not let the matter die and appealed to the North Carolina State Supreme Court.  The case was reviewed by that high court and with with only one dissent the panel of judges upheld the lower court decision.   As time passed North Carolina,  Georgia and Mississippi completely abolished all alcohol sales and the mail order business in those states meant a bonanza for A. Hatke & Company.

Andrew Hatke, unfortunately, was not there to witness the skyrocketing sales.  In 1892, at age 58, he died and was buried in Richmond’s Holy Cross Cemetery.  A large tombstone marks his grave.  After his death, Hatke family members continued the business under his name, probably managed by sons Henry and Lewis.  After 1910 Alphonso Hatke also was cited as a key executive in the firm.   In the end the anti-liquor forces caught up with the Hatkes.  Not only did Virginia vote statewide Prohibition in 1916, but earlier Congress had passed the Webb-Kenyon Act that made it unlawful to ship liquor into a dry state or community -- a law that is still on the books.  A. Hatke & Co.  closed its “window on the South” and indeed its doors to its entire liquor business that same year.



                  

How Jim Douglas Became a Kentucky Colonel

Two objectives are primary in the Kentucky tradition: To breed fast thoroughbred horses and to create good bourbon whiskey. James J. Douglas made his life work both pursuits and thereby was appointed a “Kentucky Colonel” and attained legendary status among his peers. How Douglas earned his title is the core of this vignette.

A Kentuckian through and through, James J. Douglas was born in 1846 to parents who themselves were native Kentuckians.  During his lifetime he would be known by several names:  Jim Douglas,  J.J. Douglas,  Colonel Douglas and occasionally as Douglass.  He was just 14 when the Civil War broke out and even though Kentuckians fought for both sides, there is no evidence of his participation and certainly not as an officer.  The rank of “Kentucky Colonel” was first formalized in 1813 to honor military heroes, but in the late 19th Century, administered by the governor, it became an honorary and ceremonial title for persons who had achieved distinction in other fields, particularly business.

The public record says little of Douglas’ early years.  It is documented that he settled in Louisville and he likely was engaged in the whiskey trade, a leading industry of that city.  In 1879 he married Ella K.,  a Kentucky-born woman.   There was a 12 year difference in their ages.  He was 33, she but 21.  There would be no children.

In 1886 after many years in apprenticeship to other whiskey men, Douglas struck out on his own.  He created a wholesale liquor business in Louisville and called his firm, J.J. Douglas  Co.  At first he was located at 135 Third Street but with success he soon needed more space and moved down the street to 148-150 Third Street.  When that space eventually proved to be too small, the company moved to 122 Second Street, its home for the next 13 years.   Although Douglas claimed to be a distiller, he more likely was a “rectifier,” that is, someone blending the whiskey from a variety of sources in Kentucky to achieve a smoothness and taste appealing to consumers.

The firm’s flagship brand was “Jim Douglas Whiskey.” As shown on the bottle here, the whiskey was openly advertised as a “blend.”  Jim Douglas was one of the few labels that he troubled to trademark with the federal government.   A key item of the trademark application was the circular band on the label with the name in the center and “rays radiating from said band.”   The company also used a number of other brand names for its liquors, including “Yosemite Pure Rye,” "Carlton,” "Douglas Gin,” "Eagle Elk,” "Glynn Valley,” "Meleager,” “Pastime Rye,” "Pewee,” "Salvator” and "Winetrop Club.”

Like other Louisville whiskey men,  Douglas was competing vigorously for the business of saloons, bars and restaurants to feature his liquor, as well as attempting to broaden his retail base.  An essential part of his merchandising strategy was to provide ample giveaway items.  Douglas seemed to have special flair for these gifts.  His advertising shot glass is a finely etched example,  with the script the same as his letterhead. He gave favored customers milk glass paperweights or celluloid pocket mirrors featuring a long tressed beauty displaying considerable bosom.  The slogan on the latter was: “A Whiskey That Is a Whiskey.”  More unusual were an ornate metal watch fob with a compass in the center and a cardboard baseball on which to calculate innings, outs and scores.   The scorecard was particularly appropriate for Louisville, the home of the Louisville Slugger bat company and a noted baseball town.

As his liquor dealership grew and prospered Douglas became very wealthy.  When asked his occupation by the census taker in 1900,  he replied, probably with tongue-in-cheek, “capitalist.”   Moreover, his interests were growing away from the liquor business and toward horse racing.  Called “an ardent racing fan,” in 1895 he developed and owned a trotting track known as the Douglas Park Racetrack.   Later the track expanded to thoroughbred racing and competed directly with Churchill Downs, eventually becoming the home of the renowned Kentucky Handicap race.  About this same time,  Douglas appears to  have turned over management and perhaps elements of ownership of J.J. Douglas & Co. to a Louisville resident named Jacob Bloch, born in Texas of French immigrant parents. 

In 1896 Douglas moved from Louisville to the nearby village of Middletown.  There he bought a 300-acre estate from the widow of a Louisville tobacco merchant who had established it as a horse farm.  As one account put it,  Douglas lived there “in elegant style.”  He also made improvements on the property, including building a stone waiting station along the inter-urban line to Louisville.

His estate, that came to be called “Douglas Place,” proved to be an excellent location to raise thoroughbreds.  His horse barns are shown here.  Douglas imported fine Irish stallions provide stud services.  Among them was a renowned racer named “Eothan.”  When Eothan died after siring such champions as “Requital”  and “Other Crack,”  his demise made headlines in the New York Times.  Douglas named his stables as the Eothan Stock Farm.  The annals of Kentucky horses are replete with his sale of thoroughbreds.  An example:  “Epilaska,” a chestnut filly foaled on April 4, 1904, “bred and consigned by J. J. Douglas.”  It was during this period that Douglas was designated a  “Kentucky Colonel” by the governor of the state.

Meanwhile, under the direction of Bloch, J.J. Douglas & Co., was continuing to thrive.  About 1905, the company moved to 224 Main Street,  on the periphery of Louisville’s famed “Whiskey Row.”  That was followed four years later to a location in the heart of that famed strip of whiskey distillers and dealers, shown here.   In 1915 the company underwent a corporate change.   It was incorporated, capitalized for $100,000,  and the name changed to Douglas, Edelman Distilling Company.  The incorporator was Jesse Bloch,  Jacob Bloch’s son.

Douglas lived to see the business change but died two years later in 1917 at the age of 71.  Shortly after, control of his racetrack was taken by rival Churchill Downs which operated the facility until 1958.  Douglas’ liquor dealership was terminated by National Prohibition in 1919.    After his death, his horse farm went through several owners,  his home eventually was demolished and the farm developed into a residential subdivision known to this day as “Douglass Hills.”   How the extra “s” evolved into his name is unclear.  Of  the several names by which he was known in his lifetime, I believe this Kentuckian who so successfully mixed whiskey and horses should be remembered as Kentucky Colonel Jim Douglas.

Ben Hollenbach’s Drive to Success

 Being a driver for a wholesale liquor dealer in the late 1800s was a highly difficult and taxing job.  Before the advent of the automobile, the driver was required to manage a team of horses hauling a large wagon filled with huge barrels of whiskey and heavy crates he usually loaded and unloaded by himself.  Benjamin F. Hollenbach was such a driver and he ultimately drove himself into the ownership of the Reading, Pennsylvania, company for which he toiled.

 

Born in January 1871 in Slatington, a small east central Pennsylvania town in Lehigh County, Hollenbach was the son of a Civil War veteran.  He was educated in the public schools of Slatington, likely a one-room school house.  We may speculate that he early had experience with the elaborate harnessing, driving and care of horses.  At an early age Ben ended his book learning to find work.  At the age of 17 in 1888 he arrived in Reading,  Pennsylvania.  There he was hired as a driver by George W. Hughes.  With a partner Hughes had started a wholesale liquor dealership in 1869,  located at 805 Penn Street, a major thoroughfare shown here in an early post card view.  He became the sole owner of the business in 1877.

Hughes obviously saw potential in the young Hollenbach as someone who handled his responsibilities with a maturity that belied his age.  Before long he brought the youth into the store as a clerk.  Two years later Hughes died and his son-in-law R. H. Jones took over management of the firm.  Not long after, however, Jones also died.   Hughes’ widow was left with a business to run and she turned to the trusted clerk.  Still in his early 20’s,  Ben Hollenbach took over running the firm.   For four years he managed the liquor dealership for the widow under Hughes name.  As the company prospered Ben saved his money and in 1900, with a partner,  he bought out the widow and became the co-owner and senior partner of the company.

His partner was Howard Dietrich,  a Reading druggist and businessman. One year older than Hollenbach, Dietrich was was from an established Pennsylvania family, married with five children, four sons and a daughter.  By this time Hollenbach also had married.  His wife was the former Carrie Sieger of Shoemakersville in Berks County.  They had one child, Florence, born in 1894.

The partners renamed the firm, Hollenbach, Dietrich & Co.  In buying the business they also acquired the Penn Street building.  It became the permanent home of the firm.  The two had advanced merchandising ideas for the times.  Barrels of whiskey, rum and brandy lined the walls and a customer could sample the goods before purchasing.  In those days one dollar would be enough buy a full gallon of decent whiskey.

Hollenbach and his partner also demonstrated considerable talent in marketing their whiskey brands.    As shown on a trade card here, they adopted as a trademark a keystone -- Pennsylvania being the Keystone State--emblazoned with a red star.  Advertising a long distance phone meant that the firm solicited mail orders.  They featured only two brands but marketed them vigorously.  One whiskey was named “Hodico,” an anagram of Hollenbach’s and Dietrich’s names. The firm’s other brand was “Social Rye”.   Its label featured a colorful scene of three gents sitting around a table drinking. As shown here, that whiskey could be purchased in both quarts and flasks.

Hollenbach, Dietrich were not distillers but blenders of whiskey to meet  standards of taste for their two brands.   Their raw product almost certainly came from the many distilleries that dotted the Pennsylvania landscape at that time.  Like many liquor dealers Hollenbach, Dietrich distributed multiple giveaway items to favored customers.  Shot glasses and jigger glasses were issued for Social Rye.  The slogan on the glasses -- “Pure and Old”-- was a nod to the national campaign for pure food and beverage that had its culmination in the Pure Food and Drug Act in 1906.  A more expensive gift item was the fancy paperweight shown below,  no doubt the product of a nearby Pennsylvania glass house.  For Hodico whiskey the partners issued a tip tray featuring a “Gibson Girl-like” figure with considerable bare bosom visible.  The slogan for this whiskey was “Every Drop a Pleasure.”

The partners also sold other brands of spirits beside their own.  Among them were several that claimed to have medicinal values. “Malakof Bitters,” was such a nostrum,  a product of a Belgian firm with offices in New York.  Often marketed as a remedy, it eventually was exposed as merely a “liquor compound” by U.S. Food and Drug officials.  Hollenbach, Dietrich also marketed “Duffy’s Pure Malt Whiskey,” another alcoholic product that masqueraded as medicine.

The company proved to be a highly prosperous enterprise.   A contemporary account  noted the following:   “The firm...does a large business, handling nothing but the finest wines and whiskies, and they are the proprietors of the well known ‘Social Rye,’ handled by the trade all over the country.”   Ben’s prosperity also brought his family a large and comfortable home at 125 South Eighth Street in Reading.

Hollenbach was also recognized throughout the community for his business acumen and his participation in numerous fraternal and social organizations.   His memberships included Reading Lodge No. 115 of the Elks Club, the Sons of Veterans, Fraternal Order of Eagle Knights of Pythias and the Knights of Malta.   He also was a member of The Supreme Council of the Royal Arcanum, commonly known simply as the Royal Arcanum,  a quasi-Masonic fraternal benefit society founded in 1877 in Boston.

Ben Hollenbach died in 1915 at the young age of 44.   His funeral was held at the Lutheran Church in Reading,  to which his family were adherents.   He was buried in a local cemetery with his widow, Carrie, and daughter,  Florence,  mourning beside his gravesite.  Upon Hollenbach’s death,  Howard Detrich became president of the company, bringing his eldest son, Claude, into the business as secretary of the corporation.   As National Prohibition loomed,  Detrich in 1918 converted the business into a drug store and operated it until he died in 1940.

Prohibition and the forced closing of a liquor dealership that dated back to 1869, however, could not erase the mark that Ben Hollenbach had made during his lifetime.  This small town boy had gone from hauling a horse-drawn liquor wagon to the pinnacle of business and social circles in Reading.  He had proved to be a driver with real drive.