The Polymath Who Set His Mind on Whiskey

According to the dictionary, a “polymath” is an individual whose expertise spans a significant number of different subject areas, allowing the individual to solve specific problems.  Leonardo Di Vinci frequently is given as an example.  Donald D. Cattanach of  Pawtucket, Rhode Island, shown here, had a lot in common with Leonardo.  In addition, he was a whiskey man.

Like Leonardo, Cattanach was a skilled artist and an inventor in many fields.  He was born in 1835 in the Highlands of Scotland into an old and distinguished family.  According to a 1897 biography, through his father, Duncan, he was a lineal descendant of “The Cattanach,” a Scottish chieftain also known as the “Cat of the Mountain.”  His mother, Mary, was a descendant of Macdonald, a chief of Clan Glengarry who fought the British at Culloden and was executed for his trouble.

Because his Scottish family had some wealth they were able to send Donald to London for his education.  He attended a military school there where he excelled as a swordsman.  He also became skilled in several branches of chemistry.  Before leaving England he invented a continuous process for the manufacture of the ingredients for gunpowder.  After arriving in the United States in 1855, he sold the invention to a Georgia manufacturer.  Moving to Pawtucket  he then began the manufacture of hydrofluoric acid for the embossing and decorating of glass.  He linked that endeavor to his artistic interests. 

His 1897 biography states:    "For a number of years Mr. Cattanach carried on the largest decorative business in New England. He decorated several of the churches in Pawtucket and Providence and in other towns of the state. Many private dwellings also bear testimony to his artistic ability. The designs and colors were his own, and the latter possess a durability not achieved by any one else."  Shown here are two photos of a stained glass window Cattanach designed and executed for the mansion of Rhode Island Governor Lippitt about 1865.  In the 1870 U.S. Census, the Scotsman gave his occupation as “decorative painter.”

The same census found him married. In 1859, after four years in the United States, Cattanach wed Agnes Lick, a twin daughter of Hugh and Mary (Drown) Lick.  Agnes’ father was a prominent cotton manufacturer and later a Pawtucket businessman.  The family was Scottish and she was accounted a relative of Gilbert Stuart, the portraitist of George Washington.  The 1870 census found the Cattanachs with six children in their home, three boys and three girls, ages ranging from nine to one year.

Cattanach never stopped inventing.  Among his innovations was an improved furnace that reputedly would give the same amount of heat with one third of the coal required by ordinary furnaces.  It also consumed its own smoke, something environmentalists today would applaud.  He also was working on processes for refining and treating oils and in May, 1876, with other investors he spearheaded a new company in Rhode Island called the “Chattan Oil and Paint Works” for the manufacture of paints and varnishes. The 1800 Census listed his occupation as “oil merchant.”  As his sons matured, he took them into his operations.  By 1897 three of them, John L., Hugh L., and Donald C., were engaged with their father in the management of the Cattanach laboratories and works located at the Ingrahamville area of Pawtucket

Ever the restless inventor, in 1885 Cattanach took an initial step into the liquor trade when the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office awarded him two new patents.  One was for an “apparatus for the manufacture and distillation of alcohol, hydrocarbons, and acetic acid, and for aging and refining liquors.” The illustration he submitted with the application, shown here, is not as elegant as Leonardo’s drawings but presumably more practical. The second patent was for the process involved in using the distilling apparatus.   More than a decade would elapse, however, before Cattanach opened his own distillery.  Perhaps unable to sell his system to others successfully, he determined to employ it himself.

Recognizing that he would need sales expertise in his operation, Cattanach engaged as a partner a man named Edward R. Dawley. In 1895 together they created a corporation they called the Beverage Hill Road (B.H.R.) Distilling Company, capitalizing it at $100,000. Cattanach was president;  Dawley was secretary and treasurer. Dawley also was a principal in the Hunt's Remedy Company of nearby Providence, Rhode Island. The office address of the whiskey enterprise was the same as the Hunt's firm, one that hawked a patent medicine called “Hunt’s Remedy.”  That nostrum was merchandised as “The best kidney and liver medicine....Never known to fail.”  It was advertised as curing virtually every disease known to man, from dropsy and diabetes to dyspepsia and hemorrhoids.

This kind of hyperbole was transferred to B.H.R’s whiskey which they named “Heather Blossom,” obviously a reference to Cattanach’s Scottish roots.  Under the same name B.H.R. also sold brandy and wine. The partners advertised widely, with only slightly veiled medical claims.  An ad, headed “Queen Victoria,” posited that other spirits were “...injurious, especially to ladies, elderly people, dyspeptics and invalids” because of acids and alkalines.  Only Heather Blossom was pure.  Clearly citing Cattanach’s inventions, the ad claimed that their liquor was made by an entirely original process and contained no fusel oil or other poison.  In an 1895 Boston Evening Transcript ad the ingredient “amyl” was singled out “to cause evil effects and create an appetite for strong drink.”  No amyl, it was claimed, would be found in Heather Blossom products..

Another ad was more explicit about Cattanach’s innovations.  It read: “The B.H.R. Distilling Co. calls attention to their Heather Blossom pure malt Whiskeys, Brandies, Wines, etc., which through its new system of distillation by phyisco-chemical means, are rendered chemically pure, and are of reliable and uniform quality and adapted to the requirements of the Medical Faculty in its demand for a pure and nutritive stimulant.”  The ad contain a testimonial letter purportedly from a professor of chemistry at Boston University attesting to the purity of the product.   The Atlantic Medical Weekly, reporting on the 1896 meeting of the Rhode Island Medical Assn., commented on the large display for Heather Blossom Whiskey.  It noted that representatives of B. H. R. Distilling had called on more than 5,000 physicians promoting the whiskey.

Cattanach and Dawley also went all-out to design a distinctive bottle for Heather Blossom and early patented the design.  Each size had a slightly different look.  The quart bottle carried the name and the B.H.R. logo.  The back was a guarantee of a full quart and a admonition against refilling, a common gambit of crooked bartenders.  The front  and back of the pint bottle was similar.  The company also gave out free samples from time to time. The lettering on those smaller containers was modified.  The back contained the warning that it was not to be sold.  Heather Blossom bottles ranged in colors ranging from yellow to reddish amber and in both light and dark shades.

Things did not go well for the Beverage Hill Road enterprise.  Perhaps the Cattanach distilling process gave an off taste to Heather Blossom and other B.H.R. products.  Whatever the reason,  the evidence is that only three years after it opened the company summarily shut down.  Dawley quit the distillery but remained with Hunt’s Remedy Co.  Cattanach may have had some hope of to keeping on.  Rhode Island tax records shown that, as lessee in 1890 he paid taxes of on the Beverage Hill Road property of $147.51.  Heather Blossom Whiskey, however, disappeared forever.

The 1900 census found Donald Cattanach, age 62, living in Pawtucket with his wife, Agnes.  Living with them were two sons John, 36, and Donald, 29, and a daughter, Mary, 38, as well as Agnes’ sister.  Where Cattanach’s occupation was written on the census form, it subsequently was scratched out, possibly indicating that he had retired.  Shown here is a photo of the Cattanachs, Donald and Agnes, taken in 1909 on their 50th wedding anniversary.  This aging polymath -- Rhode Island’s Leonardo Di Vinci -- could look back on a life of artistry and inventiveness yet contemplate just why his foray into the whiskey trade, an effort that once looked so promising, ended so quickly and completely. 

The Cattanach at 50 Years Wed

Note:  The bottle illustrations and some of the information for this article came from the website of the Little Rhody Bottle Club.   Their members are some of the more avid collectors of Heather Blossom bottles.  The color photograph of Cattanach’s window and of the 50th anniversary couple are from the website of Maude Dexter, a descendant.





 

Christopher Sandheger: Germany’s Gift to Cincinnati

Experienced in the liquor trade from an early age in Germany, Christopher Sandheger,  shown here about 1868 in the midst of his family, has been credited as instrumental in Cincinnati’s rise as a center of the U.S. whiskey industry and lauded as a highly valuable citizen. After his death the Cincinnati Chamber of Commerce published an extended tribute to him that said in part:  “Personally he was a man of genial and lovable character, and his friendships were many and enduring.

Born in 1833 in Herzebrock, Sandheger as a teenager went to work for the Hagedorn Distillery in Rheda, Germany.  It is likely that the Hagedorn was making and selling as “schnapps,” (a German word that covers a multitude of spirits) a liquor also called “korn,” a beverage that was distilled from fermented rye but also could be made from barley or wheat.  Clear and about 32 percent alcohol, it was a cheap and very popular drink among Germans. Working with Hagedorn, Sandheger likely learned the art of blending and compounding liquor.

At age 21 in 1854 Sandheger left Germany for America, accompanied by his younger brother, Joseph.  They settled comfortably in Cincinnati, a city with a large and growing German-American community.   According to a biography he worked in an accounting office for several years before taking a job with a Cincinnati liquor firm.  Frugal like many of his countrymen, Sandheger had accrued enough cash  by 1857 to begin his own liquor enterprise with a fellow German immigrant, Louis Hudepohl of the famous brewery family.

Almost immediately the partners ran into trouble. They were “rectifying” whiskey, that is, blending several kinds to achieve a particular taste, as Christopher had learned in Germany.  That practice incurred a special Federal tax, bitterly opposed by rectifiers. For a time Sandheger and Hudepohl blithely avoided paying it.  Apprehended by Federal authorities in 1858, by law they could have had their property confiscated.  Although the story of their arrest made the Cincinnati newspapers, the business survived, apparently because the partners promptly paid up.

That same year of the tax problem Christopher took a wife.  She was Bertha Heinzmann who had been his sweetheart in Germany and later followed him to Cincinnati.  They would have two daughters,  Christine born in 1860 and Ella born in 1862.  (As an indication of Sandheger’s closeness to the Hagedorn distilling family, both girls eventually returned to Germany and married sons of the distiller.)  The 1860 census found the young couple living in Cincinnati’s 5th Ward, a predominantly German neighborhood, near several recorded saloon owners and bartenders.  Sandheger, then 27, was listed as a “liquor merchant.”  Brother Joseph was living with the family.

In 1860,  Hudepohl left the firm and Sandheger continued on his own, located in a four story building at 21-27 West Court Street, between Main and Walnut Streets.  One contemporary article recounted those early years: "Sandheger conducted business on a small scale, but he enjoyed such popularity because of his honesty and customer service that in 1868 he found it necessary to enlarge his cramped quarters. He tore down and rebuilt portions of the building one at a time until by 1874 all parts of the original structure had disappeared."

The first floor of the building, shown here, housed the rectifying equipment with huge vats for blending the raw whiskey and the barrels in which it was aged.  The second floor held the warehouse and offices.  The upper floors held “thousands of barrels of rye and bourbon whiskey” as well as other offices and a private apartment for the owner.   The same article asserted: “According to public records, the Sandheger business is one of the largest of its kind in German hands.”

C. Sandheger Co. advertised itself as “distillers, rectifiers and importers.”  The company featured a number of its own brands, including “Stone Lick Bourbon,” “Old Sandheger Club Bourbon.” “Old Jumper Rye,”  “Federal Rye,” Sandheger Dry Gin,” “Sandheger Stomach Bitters, and “Sandheger Peach and Honey.”  The firm’s flagship brand was “Old Still Rye."  Of all his labels, Sandheger appears to have trademarked only Old Still Rye and Stone Lick Bourbon, both in 1905.

Although Sandheger advertised himself as a distiller, the claim apparently referred to his financial interests in outside whiskey-making operations.   It was a common practice of liquor wholesalers of the era to invest in existing distilleries to assure supplies of raw whiskey from which to blend their rectified brands. He partnered for a time with a man named Caleb Dodsworth who first operated a distillery on Ludlow Avenue in the Cumminsville area of Cincinnati and later moved his operations to Carthage, Ohio.  Sandheger also held stock in the Federal Distilling Company of Baltimore. 

In addition to his “house” brands Sandheger also was buying name brand whiskey from distilleries, principally in Kentucky and selling it in his own fancy jugs. Shown here is his ceramic container with gold lettering for “Old Tub” Sour Mash Whiskey, the product of the D. M. Beam distillery of Bardstown, Nelson County.  Another Sandheger jug of a similar decor advertised Thos. Moore’s Pennsylvania Rye.  (See my post on Moore, May 2012.)

Like other Cincinnati whiskey men,  Sandheger was generous with giveaway items to favored customers.  For his Old Still brand, he gifted shot glasses and for Sandheger’s Peach and Honey, a label under glass, wicker covered back-of-the-bar bottle.   He also provided practical items.  Among them were several kinds of bartender knives that included not only cutting edges but a corkscrew.  The two shown here both are dated 1900 and came with a protective pouch.  He also gave away a cash box to be used in saloons.  It had a handle, a locking mechanism and brass plaque on the top that had a picture of his headquarters.  It likely was an illustration of the 123-129 East Court Street site to which Sandheger had moved his company in 1896.  This building was five stories high and the rectifying operation was located behind to a separate 20 foot by 80 foot structure.


Meanwhile, in their personal life,  the Sandhegers continued to live in Cincinnati and were recorded there in the 1880 census.  Brother Joseph had left to marry and was working as a grocer.  Their daughters now living in Germany, the couple had living with them Henry Sandheger, age 15.   According to family members he was a nephew of Christopher’s from Germany and his full name was Gerhard Henry, also known as “Big Henry.” In time the young man would become a salesman for C. Sandheger & Co.

With his business success and gracious personality, Christopher gained recognition as a vigorous and welcome participant in Cincinnati business circles.  For 30 years he was an active member of the Chamber of Commerce and served for many years as the treasurer of the Ohio Wine and Spirits Association.  He also was an officer of the Sun Mutual Insurance Company.  Another contribution was his planning and financing the construction of  an architecturally significant apartment building. Located on Cincinnati’s Court Street it was known as Courtland Flats, acclaimed as the second Renaissance Revival building in downtown Cincinnati.  Shown here as it looks today, Courtland Flats is on the National Register of Historical Places.

In 1902 tragedy struck the Sandheger family when the younger daughter, Ella, died in Germany at the age of 40, leaving a husband and daughter named Bertha. In his will, written subsequently,  Christopher provided for his wife and the six children of his elder daughter, Christine, and lesser amounts to other relatives.  The residual part of his estate, a significant amount, was willed to Christine, and, Bertha, the motherless granddaughter.

When Christopher Sandheger died in 1906, his worth was estimated by the Cincinnati press as more than $1 million, at least twenty times that in current dollars.  The cause of death was listed as “cerebral thrombosis.”  Although he was 73 years old, the death certificate mistakenly recorded his age as 43. The address given was his Court Street office although the couple some years before had moved to Bellevue, Kentucky. Chris Sandheger was buried on Garden Lane, Section 73, Lot 189, Space 1, of Cincinnati’s Spring Grove Cemetery.  Always frugal although a millionaire, he left only $100 for a monument for his grave.

For the next decade the liquor empire Sandheger had built was operated by family members,  initially under the name “Estate of Chris Sandheger.”  Later it would revert back to the C. Sandheger Co.  Piecing together records,  it appears that the managers were Christopher’s nephew, Henry (Gerhard Henry) Sandheger who served at least for a time as president of the firm, and John (Johannes) Quack.
Quack was a German who had married one of Sandheger’s granddaughters and likely had experience with the Hagedorn liquor interests.  The pair were recorded in 1908 trademarking a Sandheger whiskey brand.

Christopher’s successors continued his tradition of attractive giveaway items to favored customers.  Shown here is a colorful 1910 calendar of a comely Indian maiden.  During this period the firm is recorded as regularly drawing liquor for rectifying purposes from the warehouses of the Rolling Fork Distillery in Marion County, Kentucky.  With the coming of statewide Prohibition in Ohio in 1916, the C. Sandheger Co. was forced to shut down and was not revived with Repeal fourteen years later. The Court Street headquarters was demolished in 1934. The Cincinnati Post newspaper offices subsequently located at the Sandheger site.

A fitting final tribute to this German-born whiskey man, so instrumental in Cincinnati’s emergence as a center of the U.S. liquor industry, can be found in the 1906 memorial written by his former colleagues in the Cincinnati Chamber of Commerce.  It reads: “Christopher Sandheger, the successful merchant, has gone from the scene of his usefulness,  but his many acts of liberality and charity and of commercial generosity, of the kind which so often helped others to help themselves along the highway of endeavor, will live in the hearts of his legions of friends.”

Note:  Credit for significant information included here goes to Ms. Bobbi Lambert, a great, great grandniece of Christopher Sandheger.  She was very helpful in searching through family records to fill in blank places in this story.  She also provided the interesting family photo of the Sandhegers that opens the vignette. 

The Five Caseys and How They Grew...Scranton

                               
Brothers five, the Caseys, had arrived serially from Ireland, but with the financial push given to them by their liquor business, together they played an important role in the business development of Scranton, Pennsylvania.  Their story tells a great deal about how America has benefited from its immigrants.

The Casey brothers were born in County Sligo, Ireland, the son of James and Catherine (Gilbin) Casey.  The father was a farmer all his life and the son of a farmer.  The Caseys had 11 children, two of whom died in infancy.   Five of them, all boys, came to America. The first to arrive were Lawrence, and Timothy Casey, ages 18 and 16 respectively, who emigrated to these shores about 1870 and settled in Lackawanna County (Scranton).  They may have been drawn to that locale by the presence of a relative,  M. Gilbin, who with a partner had been involved in the local liquor trade since about 1861.

After several years working for Gilben & Madden the Caseys took over the liquor business about 1876 when the principals retired.  Their efforts bore rapid success as their wholesale and retail whiskey trade extended throughout Lackawanna County and to adjacent counties.  They moved into a four story building at  216 Lackawanna  Avenue, shown here.  The structure was 50 feet tall and 100 feet long. The first floor was devoted to the sales and accounting departments,  the second for case goods,  the third a bottling operation, and the fourth storage for jugs. The building had an elevator and two cellars providing storage for wines and liquors.

This headquarters also allowed space for the brothers to blend their own brands of whiskey, among them "Casey's Malt, “Triumph Whiskey", and "Triumph Brand Rye.”  Their flagship label was one they called “Green Valley Rye.”  A contemporary account said of the Caseys:  “...Their house is second in importance to no establishment in the same trade in this part of Pennsylvania and their business grows with the constantly growing business of Scranton....No house in the business has a higher reputation for honorable dealing than Casey Brothers.”

Before long Lawrence and Timothy were joined by a younger brother,  Andrew J. Casey.  He was put to work as a salesman and clerk in the firm.  The 1880 U.S. Census found the three brothers, all single, all in their twenties, boarding together on Franklin Avenue.  About 1882 they would be joined by a fourth brother,  Patrick (P.J.) Casey and before long, a fifth sibling,  James J. Casey.   All of them in one way or another would be involved with Casey Brothers Wholesale and Retail Liquors.

The firm in those days used ceramic containers for much of its product.  Early jugs had rounded shoulders and the company name impressed in the clay body as shown here.  With the introduction of shoulder jugs by the Robinson Ransbottom Pottery of Roseville, Ohio, in the late 1800s,  Casey Brothers adopted them for its products.  Shown here are the company jugs in half-gallon, one gallon and three gallon sizes, all with the distinctive Robinson Ransbottom crown pottery mark on the bodies.  Casey jugs could run as large as five gallons.

Tragedy struck the Casey family twice in the next few years.  Lawrence, the eldest, died in December 1884.  According to census figures he would only have been 32 years old.  Timothy Casey similarly died in his early thirties, passing in 1888.  With the founding brothers gone, Patrick and Andrew picked up the management reins of Casey Brothers and continued its growth and prosperity.  Brother James was a longtime traveling salesman for the company. The brothers widely advertised their Green Valley Rye, claiming “38 years of unbroken popularity.”  They also provided giveaway items to favored customers including celluloid covered match safes.

The interests of Patrick and Andrew expanded considerably beyond the liquor trade.  In addition to being involved in the management of Casey Brothers, Andrew was treasurer of the Casey & Kelly Brewing Company and Patrick was its secretary.  With William Kelly the brothers had helped to found the brewery in 1891.  They bought the Meadow Brook building and remodeled it for the manufacture of ale and porter, with a capacity of fifty thousand barrels a year.  In 1895 they erected a larger brewery with a capacity of one hundred thousand barrels annually.  It boasted a state of the art ice machine, boiler and engine room.

Andrew Casey became a member of the Scranton Board of Trade and a director of the Merchants and Mechanics Bank.  He also was active in Democratic politics and was an at-large delegate from Pennsylvania to the 1920 national convention that first brought (losing) vice presidential nominee,  Franklin D. Roosevelt, to national attention. Brother Patrick was secretary/treasurer and managing partner of Casey Brothers.  He also served as Secretary of the Casey & Kelly Brewing Co., and was a large stockholder in the Merchants and Mechanics Bank.  He also had financial interests in the Scranton Traction Company,  Consumers’ Ice Company and  Scranton Illuminating, Heat, and Power Company.   Like his brother, he was a Democrat and also belonged to the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks.

Patrick and Andrew together also had major real estate holdings in Scranton.  They owned prime property at the corner of Wyoming and Lackawanna Avenues, cited as “the most valuable location in the city.”  In addition they owned residential property on Jefferson Avenue and additional commercial property on Lackawanna Avenue. 

Family ties were strong for the Caseys.  On several occasions they paid for their aging parents to cross the Atlantic to visit them.  One can imagine how proud the elder Caseys must had been to see what their sons had accomplished in America.  In 1891 Patrick visited his old home in Ireland to see his parents and spent three months abroad.   Several years later he would make a six month trip to Ireland, England, Scotland and the European continent.

Meanwhile, Patrick was also having a personal life. In 1894 He married Angela O’Malley, a Scranton native and the daughter of a foreman for the Delaware, Lackawanna and Western Company.  The 1900 Federal Census found him living on Clay Street in Scranton with Angela and their three children,  ages four to one.  The family had three live-in servants.  Over time Patrick and Angela would have six more children, for a total of seven boys and two girls.

The major accomplishment of Patrick and Andrew Casey was yet to come.  The Scranton newspaper of August 26, 1909 recorded the scene:  “...Two men scampered up the embankment at the corner of Lackawanna and Adams avenues. Like boys out for a play their ragged faces bore happy smiles. Suddenly one of them took a pick in his hands and with a hefty swing sunk the shiny steel into the earth, clean up to the handle. Then without waste of words and a grin the younger of the two sank a shovel into the loosened earth and turned it over. The other man tried the shovel too and in an instant it was all over, ground was broken for the Casey Grand Hotel, and the men were P.J. and A.J. Casey, who are building it."

The 11-story Casey Grand was to become Scranton’s most famous and prestigious address.  At its opening in January 1911 the local press gushed that everything was modern to the point of perfection, artistically beautiful, and luxurious.  Boasting  250 rooms  it was the largest hotel in northwestern Pennsylvania.  One article noted:  “The Hotel Casey stands today completed, an imposing monument to the courage of two men, Andrew J. and Patrick J. Casey, who, with their own resources reared at the corner of Lackawanna and Adams avenue, one of the most magnificent hotels in the country.”

With the coming of Prohibition,  the Casey Brothers liquor and beer interests, that had fueled the family business empire,  were force to terminate.  Now highly diversified and with the Casey Grand Hotel providing a revenue stream Andrew and Patrick did not suffer as badly as did other whiskey men.   The hotel, a stopping place for the rich and famous for decades, stood for more than 90 years.  It was demolished in 2001.

The ultimate fate of the remaining Casey brothers, my research has failed to uncover.  Suffice to say that they were hailed upon their demise for their contribution to the development of Scranton as a business center.  The five Caseys and their liquor trade had proven to be an integral part of the growth of their adopted town.

John Sebastian Thoner Kept Christmas in a Jug

Market Street, Wheeling

Many whiskey men gave away miniature containers of liquor with Christmas greetings inscribed that contained at most a swallow or two of liquid.  John Sebastian Thoner of  Wheeling, West Virginia, upped the ante by giving away pint-sized pottery jugs that not only were attractive but held a respectable amount of whiskey.  Called “the man nobody knew,” by his son, Thoner remains memorable for this line of holiday gifts as well as for the house he lived in.

The Thoner family owed its American origins to John A. Thoner, born in Germany in 1832.  Although he was trained as a weaver, upon arriving in Wheeling 1854 at the age of 22 he found little work in that trade and turned to doing a variety of odd jobs including gardener, waiter and a bottler in a brewery.   A thrifty man, in 1868 he had enough money saved to open a small business selling liquor.

During the following decade the Senior Thoner built a thriving business that, in turn, gave him the funds to build what was called “a fine brick premises of three stories” at  2240 Market Street, on the main commercial avenue of Wheeling.  It was a narrow two-and-a-half story structure with a steeply pitched roof.  Two cornice lines accentuated the south facade and visually emphasized the separation between the commercial and residential functions of the building.

Thoner moved his liquor business into the downstairs and his family upstairs. The 1880 U.S. Census found the family at the Market Street address.   His wife was Francis (spelled with an “i”) and there were three children, Thomas, 17;  Mary, 11; and John Sebastian, 8.  The father’s occupation was given as “liquor dealer.”

By 1881 Thoner Senior had expanded his operation into a drinking establishment.   In June of that year he ran an advertisement in the Wheeling paper that said:  “John Thoner takes this occasion of

informing his old customers and the public, that he has taken out a coffee house license and fitted up a first class saloon at his old stand, No. 2240 Market Street.  His bar will be constantly supplied with the best wines and liquors, beer and ale, that the market can produce.” A recent photo from the interior indicates how small Thoner's bar must have been.

Whatever success the saloon brought, it was short-lived for John A. Thoner.  At the age of 54 in 1886 he died of cancer.  That left his widow, Francis, in charge of the liquor business and saloon.  She persevered and for a period of years was accounted the proprietress of the liquor business,  one of the few women in the annals of the industry to be so recognized.   Mrs. F. E. Thoner, as she was listed in city directories, was involved in a variety of financial dealings with local banks and city officials on behalf of her enterprise.
When John Sebastian came of age,  his mother turned the business over to him in 1894.  His son treasured a picture of John standing in front of the store.  Written on the window are the words, “Family Liquor Store.”  This same son called him “The man nobody knew” and yet believed that he was “the rock of the family who watched for their best interests and led a quiet and responsible life.”

In 1895 the new proprietor changed the company name to “J. Thoner Wines and Liquors,”  and remodeled the store front.  When the structure originally was built, the store on the first floor had two doors and two windows.  In Thoner’s renovation the door leading to the second floor was left in place but the shop door, which was centered between the two windows was moved to the far right and a single large display window inserted.

Soon after the remodeling Thoner began issuing the Christmas bottles for which he is remembered. The banks of the Ohio River on which Wheeling is located were a rich source of pottery-making clay.  As a result,  Thoner would not have had any difficulty finding excellent potters to make his holiday giveaways.  Particularly attractive are two similar containers, each  about six and one-half inches high with blue cobalt stenciled lettering.  One is done in a white Bristol glaze,  the other on a gray salt-glazed body.  A third jug is also gray salt glazed and here the proprietor is “J. S. Thoner.”

A fourth jug has a dark brown Albany slip top and a Bristol glaze body with a distinctly inferior, cheaply done, label.  It appears to have been applied over the glaze, a process that leads to deterioration over time.  Although it is impossible to assess the order in which the first four jugs were issued, The final one in Thoner’s Christmas series was dated 1913 and noted “Last Wet Christmas.”  It referenced the fact that earlier in the year the voters of West Virginia had adopted statewide Prohibition,  some six years before the entire Nation went dry.  Thoner was forced to terminate his liquor enterprise.

Despite this setback,  John Sebastian continued intermittently to run a store downstairs from his residence.  In 1917, at the urging of his wife,  he moved his family into the shop and remodeled the building.  Initially the residence was on two levels, with the kitchen, dining room and pantry on the first floor behind the shop.  Acceding to his wife’s wishes, Thoner moved those uses upstairs so that the living space was on one level   He continued to run a store until Wheeling taxes on joint commercial/residential properties caused him to discontinue sales.

Thoner died about 1958 at age 86.  After renting the building for a variety of uses, his inheritors sold it in 1971 and it eventually came to be owned by the Friends of Wheeling, Inc., an organization aiming to preserve the city’s architectural heritage.  In 1984 the Thoner’s Market Street home was put on the National Register of Historical Places, from which much of the information here was obtained.  More recently operated as an antique store, the building, shown here as it looks today,  has been up for sale.  It stands as a continuing reminder of John Sebastian Thoner, a man who put Christmas in a jug.

William L. and the Distilling Wellers of Kentucky

There were no more distinguished early distilling families in Kentucky than the Wellers and William Larue Weller, the man credited with inventing “wheated whiskey,” was the giant of the family.  Even today the widely marketed “W. L. Weller Bourbon” bears his name and carries his memory.

Seen here in a modern drawing,  Weller in 1825 was born into a family that traced its origins back to Germany.  His grandfather, Daniel, had come to Kentucky on a flatboat in 1794,  purchased land near Bardstown and by 1800 was running a distillery there.  After his death in 1807 his estate included three whiskey barrels, two stills, mash kettles and drying kegs.  These were conferred on William’s father, Samuel, who continued to engage in the distiller’s trade.

As William grew up he sought new adventures.  In 1844 he moved to Louisville where he may well have worked in one of the many liquor enterprises that characterized that city.  In 1847 he joined the Louisville Brigade and with other Kentuckians served his country during the Mexican War.  At the conclusion of that conflict, William returned to Louisville and in 1849 opened his own business trading,  rectifying, and selling whiskey wholesale in collaboration with his brother, Charles.  They called their enterprise “William Larue Weller & Brother.”  They used the slogan, “Honest whiskey at an honest price.”

During this period Weller is credited with inventing “wheated whiskey,” that is, a proprietary blend that employed corn, malted barley and wheat, rather than rye.  The result was a smoother tasting whiskey that seemed richer on the palate than the traditional bourbon.  Legend has it that Weller’s liquor was so popular that he had to put his thumbprint in green ink on all invoices and barrels of whiskey he sold to assure his customers that they were getting the real stuff.

About the same time,  William, now 25 years old, was financially secure enough to marry.  His bride was Sarah B. Pence of Shelby County, a woman five years his senior.  Over the next 16 years they would have seven children,  four boys and three girls.  Weller also raised as his own son a younger brother, John, after their father and mother died in 1854 during a typhoid epidemic.  A Louisville City directory of the time lists Weller as a wholesale and retail dealer in foreign and domestic whiskey.  His business was located on the east side of Eighth Street between Jefferson and Green (now Liberty).

The advent of the Civil War wrought many changes for the Wellers.   William’s younger brother John joined Kentucky’s Confederate “Orphan’s Brigade,”  rose to the rank of captain and was wounded at the Battle of Chicamaugua.   Another brother went under arms to serve the Confederacy in Georgia.  William’s brother and partner, Charles, while in Tennessee in 1862 to collect debts and reported to be carrying a large amount of cash, was robbed by two gunmen and murdered.

After the Southern defeat,  John Weller came to work for a time with brother William in his company.   As his sons gained maturity,  Weller also began to take them aboard.  An 1876 city directory listed the business as “W.L. Weller and Son.”  His eldest, George Pence, was the partner.   William Junior was working as a clerk.  The company was now located on Louisville’s Main Street,  the very center of America’s liquor industry.  By 1887 the company was known as “William L. Weller & Sons” as other of his boys arrived.  The Wellers purchased whiskey on the open market and later contracted for large lots from distillers, including the Stitzel Brothers in Louisville and the Old Joe Distillery in Anderson County.

The company featured a blizzard of brands.  They included: "Boss Hit,” "Creedmore,” "Gold Crown,” "Harlem Club,” "Kentucky's Motto,” "La Rue’s Malt",  "Old Crib,” "Old Potomac,” "Potomac,” "Quarter Century,” "Rose Glen,” "Silas B. Johnson,” "Stone Root Gin,” “Old W. Weller” and "Uncle Buck.”  Their flagship labels were “Mammoth Cave,” and “Cabin Still” bourbons. Unlike many of their competitors, the Wellers trademarked most of their brands, beginning in 1905.   They advertised their whiskeys vigorously and provided generous giveaway items to favored customers. Those included back-of-the-bar bottles, some with label under glass, and etched shot glasses.

In 1893 William Weller made a highly significant move when he employed as a salesman the 19-year-old Julian Van Winkle,  who came to be known as “Pappy.”  Weller is said to have told Van Winkle never to take a drink with a customer, rather:  “If you want a drink, you’ve got samples in your bag and you can drink in your room.”  By now there were four sons in the business with their father.  George and William Junior were partners.  John C. and Lee Weller were listed as clerks.

In 1895,  apparently beginning to feel his age at 75,  William Weller filed his will with Jefferson County.   A year later he retired, leaving the business to George and his brother John, even though the latter had been working elsewhere.  In March 1899 William died.  The cause of death was given as “chronic spasmodic asthma with heart complications.”  With his grieving family gathered around, this acknowledged whiskey pioneer was buried in  Louisville’s Cave Hill Cemetery,  the resting place of many whiskey “barons.”

After his death some observers doubted William’s claim to have originated wheated whiskey.  One critic said his research found no evidence of the Wellers even making wheated bourbon.  He cited a contract between the company and Stitzel: "To make 500 barrels of bourbon for Weller using a mash bill that was rye and not wheat. Weller was not a large company at that time and 500 barrels represents a large portion of their yearly sales so I found it hard to believe that Weller was making a wheated bourbon at the time.”   Still other observers continue to credit Weller for this acknowledged advance in bourbon.  No other claimant, to my knowledge, has come forward.

In any event, the firm continued prosperous under Weller family management until 1909 when the sons sold out to “Pappy” Van Winkle and another company salesman,  Alex T. Farnsley.  Although they maintained the original name, the partners adopted a new business strategy. In order to insure a more secure supply of raw whiskey, they saw the need to own at least a part of a distillery and invested in the Stitzel plant.  By the time Prohibition arrived in 1920,  Van Winkle was president of W.L. Weller and Sons and secretary/treasurer of Stitzel Distillery.  Stitzel was the president of the distillery and secretary/treasurer of W. L. Weller and Sons and Farnsley was the vice president of both companies.  As a result  they were able to piggyback on the Stitzel license to sell “medicinal whiskey” during National Prohibition.  Their Mammoth Cave brand was one of the bourbons offered to pharmacies during the “dry” era in America.

After repeal, the Stitzel plant operated as the The Stitzel-Weller Distillery under control of the younger members of the Van Winkle and Farnsley families.  As the years have rolled on a number of corporate changes have erased the distillery name but a Weller brand bourbon has continued to be sold.  Today the W.L. Weller Special Reserve is a prized and pricey whiskey, produced by the Buffalo Trace Distillery in Frankfort, Kentucky.  Naturally it is a wheated bourbon.