James McGuire – Washington Whiskey Maker

 Foreword:  As regulars to this website know, from time to time I include the work of a “guest” author whose work I have run across doing my own research.  In his new book, “Whiskey Makers in Washington D.C., A Pre-Prohibition History,” attorney and whiskey producer Troy Hughes provides a view of the liquor trade in the Nation’s Capital during the early 1900s.  The book is well worth reading and Troy graciously has allowed me to reprint one of his chapters here as evidence.

James Charles McGuire was a liquor merchant that made the Mount Pleasant neighborhood his home. Born in Washington, D.C. in 1875, he graduated from Georgetown University in 1896. By late 1903, he formed a partnership with John F. Monaghan and opened a liquor store named “Monaghan and McGuire” at 621 Seventh Street NW. Their flagship brand was Federal Seal Rye. The partnership was very short-lived and by the time the ads shown below ran in June 1904, Monaghan had already left the partnership.

Once their wholesale supplier Rosskam, Gerstley and Company saw how successful their store was, the wholesaler wanted a larger share of the profit. Gertstley induced Monaghan to withdraw from the partnership with McGuire to become an employee of Rosskam, Gerstley and Company. In executing his plan, Gerstley also claimed that the former partnership owed him a $5,000 payment on a bond the partnership used to secure the purchase of alcohol.

 When the case went to court in the Supreme Court of the District of Columbia, December 10, 1904, a judgment was obtained against Monaghan. He admitted that the debt was due to the wholesaler. McGuire appealed the decision, first to the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, where he again lost, and finally to the Supreme Court of the United States. The case McGuire v. Gerstley, 204 U.S. 489, was decided on February 25, 1907. Associate Justice Rufus Peckham, writing for the Court, affirmed the decision of the Court of Appeals below; making McGuire a three-time loser in the Judicial Branch. 

Despite this rough start, McGuire went on to become a successful liquor merchant with his store located at 519 9th Street NW. An ad from the December 24, 1905, Washington Post shows that McGuire was now the “Sole Distributor” of Federal Seal Rye and that: “Uncle Sam Inspects Every Barrel and Guarantees Its Purity.” And also, that the bottles came, “Direct from DISTILLERY to YOU. Straight Rye, 7 years old. One Dollar Per Full Quart.” This ad indicates that, at least in 1905, Federal Seal Rye was claimed to be a straight whiskey that was bottled-in-bond. In 1913, he was the Secretary for the Retail Liquor Dealer’ Association (the same organization headed by William Barry of Mount Pleasant Club Whiskey). In 1914, McGuire was appointed as a teller for the Washington D.C. Chamber of Commerce. 

 An avid Washington Nationals fan, McGuire led a prominent Booster Club of 28 individuals, who from time to time would collect, pool and present money to show fan appreciation for certain team members. One such special occasion was mentioned in the July 24, 1913, in The Washington Times under the headline, “ORDER IS PLACED FOR JOHNSON CUP – Anniversary Gift From Capital Fans Will Stand Forty Inches High, and Is a Magnificent Piece of Work – Now Up to the Fans to Fill Trophy to Brim with Money”.  McGuire’s Booster Club was listed, along with eight other clubs that raised a total of $605.97 that was presented to ace pitcher Walter Perry “The Big Train” Johnson on August 2, 1913, to mark his six-year anniversary with the Nationals.

Johnson started with the Nationals in 1907 and spent his entire career with the team. He was by far the greatest player to ever wear a uniform for a baseball team in Washington. He was one of the original five players inducted into the Hall of Fame when it opened its doors in 1936. Considered one of the most dominant pitchers of all time, he won the pitching Triple Crown (Wins, Strike Outs and Earned Run Average) three times (1913, 1918 and 1924).  He was also named the American League’s Most Valuable Player twice (1913 and 1924). 

Johnson ended up living only a few blocks away from McGuire in the Mount Pleasant neighborhood, first at the Kenesaw Apartment House at the corner of 16th and Irving (formerly Kenesaw) Streets in 1915, and then at 1843 Irving Street until 1925. When flush with the money he had earned from taking the Nationals to the 1924 World Series, he bought a house on Old Georgetown Road, Bethesda, Maryland.

After Prohibition came to Washington, D.C. in 1917, McGuire closed his liquor store and played an active role in the Al Smith Club of Washington, D.C.  Al Smith was a four-time Governor of New York, who in 1923 signed legislation repealing the state’s prohibition statute, leaving enforcement to the federal government. Smith became the Democratic candidate for the President of the United States in 1928.  In February 1928, McGuire was appointed as a member on a three-person committee to find a permanent headquarters for the campaign.  In June 1928, he was listed as a candidate for the central committee in the Democratic primary for Washington, D.C. 

A question on the ballot read, “Do you favor national representation for the people of the District of Columbia in the Congress of the United States and in the Electoral College?”. It seems things in Washington, D.C. politics never change. Smith, a Catholic went on to lose the election soundly to Herbert Hoover, in part because the Temperance Movement made much of his religion — claiming that the Pope would be giving Smith orders.

McGuire died at his home at 3204 19th Street NW in Mount Pleasant on August 31, 1938 and was given a requiem mass at Shrine of the Sacred Heart Church in the neighborhood. He was buried at the Mount Olivet Cemetery.  One of McGuire’s bottles was found sealed in a wall across the street from where he lived. Interestingly, the label provides that the contents of the bottles was a “BLEND,” that indicates McGuire either switched sources for his whiskey – leaving behind the claim of it being aged seven years and a straight whiskey, or he just relabeled the existing whiskey truthfully to comply with the Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906.

Note:  Troy Hughes’ book contains 175 pages of interesting historical information, including an excellent narrative on how American whiskey became to be defined by President Taft, a definition that has stood to the present day.  The book can be ordered as Whiskey Makers in Washington, D.C.: A Pre-Prohibition History by Troy Hughes | The History Press Books (arcadiapublishing.com) or by calling 843-853-2070.

Three Novelists on National Prohibition

 

 Foreword:   National Prohibition, banning all liquor distilling and sales throughout the entire United States, was the law of the land from 1920 until 1934.  During that period three well known American authors, one woman and two men, addressed the subject of whiskey in their novels.  Although  Prohibition played a role for all three, each brought a different context and perspective to the subject, as will be evident below.

During more than four decades of literary work, Ellen Glasgow (1873-1945) published twenty novels, a collection of poems, a book of short stories, and a book of literary criticism.  Although in her lifetime Glasgow won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction, her works, somewhat undeservingly,  are little read today.  A native of Richmond, Virginia, where she lived for most of her life, much of her work centered around life in the Commonwealth.  This is particularly true of a novel she published in 1926 called “The Romantic Comedians.”  

Considered her most humorous work, it is set in Richmond in the early 1900s.  A major character is Judge Gamaliel Bland Honeywell, a self-satisfied Virginia lawyer and jurist whose memories and affectations are a principal theme.  Like many Virginia gentlemen, the Judge is fond of sipping whiskey throughout the day.  Glasgow portrays him musing of an afternoon that:  “Well he would have time for a nap, after his thimbleful of Old Baumgardner…With a sigh of satisfaction, he drank the whiskey and stretched himself on the broad sofa.”

The whiskey Glasgow cited was not fictional.  On land that their family had owned and occupied almost since the American Revolution,  James Baumgardner put the family name in the forefront of American distillers and established Virginia-made whiskey nationally as a quality liquor.    When the Civil War ended, Baumgardner’s farm and distillery were in ruins, many of his slaves had departed and the entire countryside lay in ruins.  Undeterred, he determined to recoup his fortunes by expanding a small distillery and making "Bumgardner Pure Old Rye Whiskey" a well-known, respected brand. His bottles bore labels that depicted an artist's view of his operation.  James' motto for his whiskey was:  Wherever it goes, it goes to stay."  Before long Bumgardner's whiskey was being sold from coast to coast.

Writing six years after National Prohibition was imposed, Glasgow describes its effects on her fictional Judge Honeywell.  The Judge no longer enjoys going to his club now that no alcohol was being served.  He jealously guards his dwindling supplies of Old Baumgardner and carefully monitors other family members who may want to sample some.  The author, however, is silent on the subject of Prohibition itself.  As a final note, Baumgardner Whiskey was not revived after Repeal.

Glasgow’s silence is in distinct contrast to the stance of Irvin J. Cobb (1876-1944), once among America’s top celebrities:  Author of sixty books , a writer once compared favorably with Mark Twain,  Cobb was the country’s highest paid journalist; a star of radio,  motion pictures, and the lecture circuit.  He hosted the Academy Awards in 1935, received the French Legion of Honor and awarded two honorary doctorates.  Initially Cobb saw Prohibition as a subject for humor.

That jocular attitude had vanished by 1929 when Cobb wrote the only American novel devoted to the whiskey industry.  Called “Red Likker,” his book tells the story of an old Kentucky family who founded a distillery called “Bird and Son” in the wake of the Civil War.  It traces the history of this enterprise up to the time of Prohibition when it is forced to close.   Ultimately the distillery is destroyed by fire and the family is reduced to running a crossroads grocery store.

Central to the novel is Cobb’s polemic against Prohibition.  Colonel Bird, the fictional founder of the distillery, argues at great length with his sister, Juanita, a teetotaler and Prohibitionist, about the pros and cons of permitting the sale of alcoholic beverages.  The Colonel ultimately triumphs:   When the Volstead Act reduces the 42% alcohol in Juanita’s patent medicine,  she is shown to be an alcoholic.  She revives only when the Colonel pours her a shot of Kentucky bourbon. 

Not only did Cobb inveigh against Prohibition in his literary works,  he also made it a personal crusade.  He became chairman of the Authors and Artists Committee of the Association Against the Prohibition Amendment.  Under his vigorous leadership, the committee ultimately boasted 361 members including some of the leading figures of the day.   As chairman,  he released statements to the press blaming Prohibition for increased crime, alcoholism and disrespect for the law.  “If Prohibition is a noble experiment,”  he said in one, “then the San Francisco fire and the Galveston flood should be listed among the noble experiments of our national history.”   With the law’s repeal in 1934, Cobb authored a pamphlet of cocktail recipes.

Sherwood Anderson (1876-1941), an established figure as a major American author, devoted a 1936 novel to yet another aspect of the Prohibition era —  bootleg alcohol.  Although not an activist like Cobb, in 1927 Anderson wrote an article entitled “Prohibition” for Vanity Fair magazine.  There he stated: Well enough I know that my voice is a feeble one. What I say will have no effect. However I feel this inclination to speak up. It has seemed to me, from the very beginning, that this whole matter of prohibition has been put on the wrong footing. We should begin to find out, sometime, that people are not changed by laws. You do not make men moral or immoral that way….Prohibition—the triumph of vulgarity.  That is all I can see in the matter.

An Anderson’s novel, “Kit Brandon,” tells the rambling tale of its title heroine, a woman from the mountains of Appalachian Virginia who is heavily involved in illegally making and selling whiskey.  The author knew that region well, having lived there for almost 30 years.   A major character, Tom Halsey, has been  distilling  moonshine whiskey.  After Prohibition is imposed Halsey decides to enlarge his operation:  “He had got his neighbors who were liquor makers…there were enough of them, all small makers, little groups of men going in together…He had got them all to bring the stuff to him.”   Kit becomes a principal driver for Halsey, guiding other cars full of illegal whiskey across the mountains.

In the novel Anderson views Prohibition as a move of “haves” against “have nots":  “‘Oh , pride, oh cocksureness.  The saloon must never come back.’  Now it will become fashionable, a real mark of distinction, to have a stock of liquor in the home.’We the rich and well-to-do, can have it now.  The  others, of the lower classes the workers, they cannot get it. ’You’ll see they will be better workers now.’”  Anderson also relates the story of a hypocritical prohibition-supporting U.S. Senator drinking from a bottle marked as medicine that he keeps refilled with corn whiskey brought by constituents.  

Although each of these authors addressed Prohibition from a different perspective, they illuminated a few of the multiple impacts the ban on alcohol had on American life and society.   All three, I suspect, celebrated Repeal. 

 

New Orleans’ I.L. Lyons: Combat, Cures, and the Courts

Captured once, wounded twice, Isaac Luria Lyons fought for the Confederacy in the Civil War virtually from its outset until the surrender at the Appomattox Courthouse.  Returning to New Orleans a war hero, Lyons, shown here, became a hugely prosperous druggist among whose products was an alcohol-laced “medicine.” recommended for children.  The nostrum would bring him into conflict with the national government he earlier had fought to overthrow.  Would he surrender again or fight on?

Lyons in War:  This post has documented the Civil War activities of many future “whiskey men” but none equal the lengthy military career of Isaac Lyons during that conflict.  Born in 1837 in South Carolina, the son of Jacob and Elizabeth Hart Lyons, he was 24 when the conflict erupted.  By that time Lyons had migrated further south to New Orleans where in June 1861 he joined the 10th Louisiana Infantry Regiment.  As the unit assembled, Lyons’ leadership qualities were recognized and he was elected second lieutenant of Company A, later raised to first lieutenant.

When the 10th Louisiana was moved into Virginia, Lyons found himself engaged in some of the earliest hot combat of the Civil War.  During the retreat from Yorktown, he commanded troops at Williamsburg, shown above, Lee’s Mills and Seven Pines.  Leading a charge at Malvern Hills, he was captured and eventually made a prisoner of war at Governor’s Island Prison in New York.

Lyon’s capture brought to the fore his sister, Rachel Lyons, popularly known as “La La.” and hailed as a beauty of the Confederacy.   Living in Columbia, South Carolina, La La, shown here, made headlines in Southern newspapers during her search in Richmond for news of her prisoner brother.  A chronicler of Civil War women wrote: ”Miss Lyons had already been a marked woman in Columbia society and her quick wit and sinuous grace at once attracted attention at the capital.”

During early phases of the war when prisoner exchanges were common, Lyons was released, returned to his company, and promoted to its captain.  In that capacity, he fought at Chancellorsville and Gettysburg.  At the subsequent Battle of the Wilderness, he was seriously wounded and hospitalized for months.  Returning to combat just in time to take part in the October 1864 Battle of Cedar Creek, Lyons was hit again, receiving a flesh wound in the hip. 

Although this setback might have discouraged a lesser man from further fighting, Lyons returned a third time to his regiment on the Petersburg lines.  From there he was part of the retreat to Appomattox where he surrendered with Lee’s remaining Army. The 10th Louisiana was only a shadow of what it had been.  The regiment had taken serious losses at Malvern Hills, Antietam, and Chancellorsville.  It then lost 45 percent of its remaining force at Gettysburg.  At Appomattox of the 10th Louisiana only four officers, Lyons among them, and thirteen men remained to surrender.

Meanwhile, La La Lyons had done her own surrendering.  During a visit to Mobile, she met a prominent young surgeon attached to Bragg’s army, Dr. James F. Heustis.  Heustis quit the military, the couple married, and settled down in Mobile to raise a family.  The chronicler gushed about La La:  “The mother has ever been a remarkable conversationalist and her hospitality has been perennial.”

Lyons in Business.  Meanwhile Isaac, returning to New Orleans, was being hailed as a major war hero.  He may have seen the adulation as a springboard to  business success and chose pharmaceuticals.  Some sources record him as owning a wholesale and retail drug business as early as 1866.  More likely Lyons had gone to work for Dr. William Ball, a pharmacist doing business at the corner of Camp and Gravier Streets.   By the 1890s, he had been made a partner in the enterprise and the company became Ball & Lyons.

In January 1874, Dr. Ball retired, selling his share of the business to the war hero and hailing his successor as “being eminently worthy of the patronage liberally bestowed on the house of Ball & Lyons.”  Isaac immediately announced that he would change the name of the enterprise to his own.  He subsequently advertised his business as “I.L. Lyons, Druggists, Importers, and Manufacturing Chemists.”

Lyons vastly expanded the customer base for his pharmacy. In time he would open two more stores, 109-117 Gravier, and 94 Common.  The main company building is shown right.  He emphasized the mail order trade, selling to  drugstores not only in New Orleans but throughout Louisiana and elsewhere in the Deep South.  The 1917 photo below is described as the Lyon’s “secretarial office” deeply involved in facilitating that trade.  Notice that the employees are predominantly men.

 

By the 1880s Lyons was advertising in city directories as a dealer in wines and liquors.  Although he apparently did not feature any proprietary brands, Lyons was apparently selling whiskey blended in his facilities and sold in ceramic jugs of gallon and two gallon sizes.  Those subsequently likely would have been have been decanted into pint and quart sized bottles for retail sales.

Although Lyons sold liquor, his more lucrative use of alcohol were in the many “medicinal” nostrums and cures he manufactured and sold. Lyons advertised “Adams Chill Tonic,” Brodies’ Cordial,” “Garryowens Bitters,” “Lococks’ Cough Elixir,” and other Lyons “preparations” virtually all of them containing significant amounts of alcohol.   

Lyons in Court.  Among the nostrums listed above, a Lyons bestseller was Brodie’s Astringent Cordial.  As advertised on trade cards, this medicinal was sold with an emphasis on children, from youngster to tiny babes.  The messages on the flip side were essentially the same:   “Brodie’s Astringent Cordial, Guaranteed Safe and Sure.  Cholera, Cholera Morbus, Diarrhea, Dysentery, Cholera lnfantum and all affections of the bowels are promptly relieved and quickly cured by its use…Perfectly harmless to babies and children.   Contains no narcotics, so Mothers may feel secure in  its administration.  For Teething Children it is invaluable to ameliorate their sufferings.  Indorsed by numerous physicians.”

For those not up on their diseases, Cholera Infantum is defined as an often fatal form of gastroenteritis occurring in infants, not of the same cause as cholera but having somewhat similar characteristics.  Cholera morbus refers to acute gastroenteritis occurring in summer or autumn; it is characterized by severe cramps, diarrhea, and vomiting.  The cause of these diseases was not well understood in the 19th Century.  That did not deter nostrum peddlers like Lyons from claiming cures.

Lyons advertised Brodie’s Cordial incessantly, including testimony from customers who  allegedly had been cured of their “affection of the bowels” by its use.  Typical was an endorsement from someone signing as “your most obedient servant” and initials “I.W.”  This person claimed to be so riven by stomach problems that “I became a mere skeleton.”  Reading about Brodie’s elixir, the individual tried some, and as a result, “I am now, thank Heaven, perfectly recovered, and as well as I ever was in my life.”  Not everyone, however, was impressed.

The passage of the Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906, allowed the Federal Government through the Agriculture Department to report misbranding of patent medicines and trigger action in the federal courts.  In June 1921, Lyons’ company was hauled before a judge, charged with shipping a quantity of Brodie’s Cordial into Mississippi that “falsely and fraudulently represented it to be effective as a treatment, remedy, and cure for cholera and other human stomach ailments.” Amazingly, the tonic also was advertised by Lyons as a remedy for “bowel disorders of chickens, ducks, turkeys and pigeons.”  The federal indictment concluded:  “In fact, it was not.”

Analysis in Department’s Bureau of Chemistry found that Brodie’s Cordial was a syrupy mix of water and alcohol containing an extract of acacia trees, tannin (a chemical contained in tea), oil of peppermint and oil of cinnamon.  Contrary to Lyon’s advertised assurance of “no narcotics,” the nostrum also was found to contain small amounts of morphine.  None of the ingredients are known to be effective against cholera.

In the early days of Federal scrutiny of food  and drugs unfortunately the penalties for such blatantly misleading branding were light.  As virtually all accused under the law did, Lyons plead guilty and paid a fine of $20, the maximum imposed for a first offense.  Although in today’s dollars, the fine would be closer to $500, it still was just a small fraction of Lyon’s profits.  In short, although his guilty plea might seem another surrender, in fact this former Johnny Reb had emerged on top.

Lyons En Famille:  Throughout his career as druggist, Isaac Lyons also  maintained a family life.  Not long after returning from war, in 1867 he married Eva J. Sepans in New Orleans.  Over ten years they had seven children.  In time Lyons was able to house his family in a spacious New Orleans mansion at 2644 South Charles Avenue, shown above.  As he aged, he brought members of his family into the company.  Two years after government action on Brodies’s Cordial, Lyons died at the age of 85.  He was buried in New Orleans’ Metairie Cemetery.  His family carried on without him.  A 1927 notice indicates Lyons sons and other relatives occupying management positions in I. L. Lyons & Co., Limited.

Note:  This post was devised from a wide number of sources. The principal source for Lyons’ Civil War service was “The Jewish Confederates” by Robert N. Rosen, 2000.  Several of the photos are through the courtesy of Ferd Meyer and his Peachridge website.

KC’s Wiley Bros. Bet on “Fritz Spindle-Shanks”

 

                           

At the end of the 19th Century when the Wiley Brothers, Harry and Ernest, entered the liquor trade, Kansas City, Missouri, already had dozens of similar houses selling whiskey.   How could they distinguish their business from this existing horde?  The Wileys decided that one strategy was to feature a hard-drinking raven known as “Fritz Spindle-Shanks” as a focus of their advertising.   They may have been unaware that they were tapping into the imagination of an artist, poet and author living far across the Atlantic Ocean in Germany.

He was Wilhelm Busch (1832-1908) who became famous for his picture stories executed through black and white wood and zinc engravings, many with short rhymed texts of his authorship.  Shown here, Busch is still widely known in Germany, especially for his children's stories.  Among them was “Hans Hucklebein,” below, where an out-of-control black bird first made an appearance.

Not long after its publication a printing firm saw the possibilities of rendering Busch’s creations in color, translating his verses into English, and producing a series of trade cards chronicling the rise and fall of Fritz.  They were offered for sale via a catalog to wholesale and retail enterprises.  The series proved popular, purchased by companies all over America, among them the Wiley Brothers.  My assumption is that Harry and Ernest gave away one or more of these cards with each liquor purchase. The objective was for customers to complete the series, as displayed here:

1.  Fritz Spindle-shanks The Raven Black, takes kindly to the applejack.

2.  Its taste is sweet, he thrusts his beak, into the liquor stiff and sleek.

3.  He takes a nip and with delight, it gurgles slowly out of sight.

4.  Immerse his beak again goes back, into the glass of applejack.

5.  The glass is raised, his spirit pains, to think that nothing more remains.

6.  Whew!  Whew!  He feels so very queer, with silly look and slinking leer.

7.  And screams with wild delight possessed, thus on three toes he blandly rests.

8.  But wantoness too often tends, to show the moral of such ends.

  9.  Thus roughly yanks with vulgar haste, these articles of female taste.

10.  He takes a flop and spindle shanks, will ne’re again renew his pranks.

Opened for business in 1887, Wiley Brothers moved frequently during its relatively short years in business, perhaps each time trying to tap into a larger customer base.  Their first location was 1002 Main Street, the address referenced on the Fritz series.  After two years, they moved to 220 West Fifth St.  Just two years later they moved again to 110-112 West Fifth.  Their marketing efforts continued to emphasize trade cards, epitomized by the portrait of a fetching little girl.  The Wiley’s also went upscale on their whiskey containers.  Below are two views of jugs that contained their blends.  These ceramics originated in Red Wing, Minnesota, some 350 miles north of Kansas City, and today are much prized by collectors.

Apparently neither trade cards nor attractive jugs could sustain Wiley Brothers against intense Kansas City competition.  The last business directory entry for the company was 1895.  Wiley Brothers whiskey house had lasted just nine years. Unfortunately I have been unable to obtain much personal information about Harry and Ernest.  They may have bachelors.  The brothers were recorded in 1891 as living together at 1324 Jefferson Street, now an address of a modern apartment building.  I am hopeful that a relative will see this post and help fill in personal details.

Note:  This post was made possible by the help of Dave Cheadle, a longtime colleague known widely as “The Trade Card Guy.”  Dave provided me with information and Internet sources that made possible this post after I had stumbled on the Wilhelm Busch-inspired series of cards.  In addition to Dave’s lively commerce in trade cards via the Internet, he maintains a retail presence in the historic Main Street District of Central City, Colorado.  The Dave Cheadle window booth and his “Central City Card Bar” inside the store contains exhibits and display for thousands of Victorian trade cards.