Henry Corbin & the Westerville Whiskey War

 

                 

Early on the morning of July 3, 1875, two explosions rocked Westerville, Ohio. They must have awakened everyone in town, including Henry Harrison Corbin. In that fiercely prohibitionist town he had open the saloon shown above.  Corbin understood the noise. The Westerville Whiskey War had begun in earnest.

Henry was born in May 1834 into a Virginia farming family, the son of William and Barbara Corbin.  His father appears to have been a renter, moving to new land with some frequency.  The 1850 census found the Corbins living in Licking County in Central Ohio.  Sixteen-year old Henry was working as a farm laborer. 

By the 1860 census the Corbins had moved again to a farm in nearby Delaware County.  The 1860 census found Henry still living at home, farming, but he was recorded with assets equivalent to $36,000 today.  He also had married in June 1858, an Ohio-born woman named Phloxena “Polly” Walker.  Henry was 24; Polly was 18. She is shown here in middle age.

The arrival of children in the Corbin household may have prompted Henry to decide to abandon the plow, move into nearby Westerville, and open a hardware store.  It was a good choice.  By the 1870s, Westerville was developing into a modern community. Streetcars ran along the major streets, and a railroad connected Westerville to Columbus,15 miles to the south. As population grew, residents needed hardware.  Corbin’s store was a success and allowed him to purchase real estate around town.

In 1875, Corbin decided to open a saloon in a building he rented at the corner of Knox and West Main Street, shown above.  He did so in full knowledge that it would prove controversial. As early as the late 1850s, Westerville residents had earned a reputation for opposing the sale and consumption of alcohol.  Otterbein College (now “University”), affiliated with the conservative Church of the Brethren, dominated the local culture. Town voters passed a law that banned the sale of "fermented spirits," becoming one of the first communities in Ohio to do so. 

Recognizing that the local ordinance, in fact, could not be enforced, Corbin opened his saloon in June, 1975.   A retrospective news article recalled the scene:  “Westerville residents awoke one morning to find a “LAGER BEER” sign flaunting in their faces….Business during the day was good, but that same night certain unappreciative members of the populace entered the place and emptied the contents of Corbin’s casks and bottles on the floor.”   Undaunted the owner replenished his whiskey and beer and continued in business.

A few days later, on July 1, 1875, at 9 A.M. a crowd estimated at some 1,000 met to protest the saloon. They then marched to 36 West Main and demanded that Corbin close his doors.  He refused.  Many residents wanted him to stay, he contended.  Expecting trouble, Corbin had armed himself with two pistols. The protesters on that occasion limited activities to speeches, prayers and hymns.  The orisons did not move the proprietor.  

The protesters, facing defeat, met again that night in the Presbyterian church where they raised $5,000, equivalent to almost $120,000 today.  The money was to be used as incentive to persuade Corbin to quit.  But hotter heads were not to be denied.  The next night, the saloon was pelted with stones for half an hour, breaking windows.  Nonetheless, Corbin reopened the next day.

Enboldened, the perpetrators struck again the following night, this time using dynamite in the blast heard all around town.  Corbin’s saloon was bombed, tearing down two walls and blowing off the roof.  Only one room remained intact.

A newspaper photo captured the damage.  The crowd that gathered at the wreckage the next morning noticed that the “GER” had been blown out of Corbin’s large “LAGER” sign, leaving only the “LA.”  Newspapers nationwide dubbed the conflict the “Westerville Whiskey War.”

Despite this setback, Corbin repaired his drinking establishment and tried to stay in business, but ultimately gave up.  Reasons differ for his capitulation.  Some say it was discouragement at being forced into costly court battles; others contend it was a second explosion at his Main Street saloon.  He and his family were reported to have moved at least temporarily to Columbus.

Corbin was a hard man to discourage.  Some said “a slow learner.” Four years after his Main Street saloon had been blown up, he was back in Westerville, having bought and renovated the Clymer Hotel, a small hostelry on North State Street, shown here.  Expecting that a hotel setting would discourage an explosive response, he opened a saloon in the basement. 

In early September, a mysterious theft of two 26 pound kegs of gunpowder from a Westerville hardware store occurred.  On September 15, 1879, at 2 a.m, another explosion shook the town “with earthquake violence,” said a local newspaper: “The noise was heard seven or eight miles away; some accounts said it was heard in Columbus.”  The explosion threw Henry Corbin out of bed and knocked out two of his teeth.  The hotel-saloon, as shown here was made uninhabitable, an adjacent house sustained damage and nearby stores had windows blown out.  Hopes gone, the Corbins moved permanently to Columbus.

The Town Council offered a reward of $300 for information leading the arrest of those responsible, paltry beside the $5,000 raised to run Corbin out of town.  In 1923 an anonymous article appeared in a United Brethren publication in which an individual confessed to the bombing.  He claimed he did it to protect a friend studying for the ministry who like to drink there, presumably to keep him on the straight path to “taking the cloth.”

In any war, there are losers and winners.  The clear winner was Westerville, now nationally known as “Dry Capital of the World.” Describing its residents as "socially clean and morally upright," the Anti-Saloon League in 1909 moved its headquarters there from wicked Washington, D.C.  Westerville became the publishing center for the Leagues’ anti-alcohol pamphlets, books and posters, including one entitled “Death, Defects, Dwarfings in the Young of Alcoholized Guinea Pigs.”  Women were key employees in the printing processes.

After abandoning Westerville, Corbin apparently lived the rest of his life in Columbus with wife Polly and his family. In neither the 1900 nor 1910 Federal census does he appear to have had an occupation.  Henry died in October 1910 at the relatively young age of 52, after a two-year siege of heart disease. He was buried in Mount Calvary Cemetery, Columbus.  His and Polly’s grave monument is shown here.

Until recently, Westerville remained “dry” well after the repeal of National Prohibition and into the 21st Century.  Today the town celebrates its heyday by sponsoring an Anti-Saloon League Museum.  Moreover, a large sculpture in front of City Hall appears to show a liquor barrel that has been blown to pieces, suggesting techniques similar to those that destroyed Corbin’s saloons during the Westerville Whiskey War.

Note: This vignette was drawn from a rich trove of material abut the Westerville Whiskey War. Two principal sources were an undated story from the Westerville Monitor headlined “Townspeople Dynamite Saloon and Drive Wets Out of Westerville for Good,” and an October 8,1987, article from “The Public Opinion” publication of the Westerville Library written by Harold Hancock of Otterbein College. Renovated as shown below, Henry Corbin’s first (bombed) saloon building still stands in Westerville.  In recent times plans have been announced to use it as a drinking establishment.

 

 

Rudolph Raphael: Heady Rise & Fateful Fall

Born into a Jewish immigrant family of modest means, given only an elementary education and forced to go to work as a teen, Rudolph Raphael quickly distinguished himself in Pittsburgh as a farsighted, creative leader in the liquor trade.  At an age when Raphael could enjoy his prosperity, a mansion home and the comfort of his family, fate took a cruel twist.

Raphael was born in New York City in 1854, the son of Jeanett Victorious and Lippman Raphael, his father a merchant tailor and immigrant from Germany.  The boy’s education was basic but he proved to be a bright lad.  The 1870 census of the Raphael family recorded him by the age of 16 clerking in a store in Meadeville, Pennsylvania. By 1884 Raphael had moved to Pittsburgh, listed in local directories that year as a bookkeeper with the M. H. Danziger Company, a liquor house.  

Raphael was a quick study in the whiskey trade and by 1886 had struck out on his own with a wholesale liquor dealership at 204-206 Wood Avenue in Pittsburgh.  Throughout most of his business career, Raphael had a partner.  His first was a Pittsburgh local named Dreifus, as shown on the letterhead above.  According to business directories, Dreifus was gone after about a year and Raphael was running the company under his own name.

Raphael’s next partner was his brother-in-law, Louis Zeugschmidt, the husband of his sister Miriam.  According to directories Zeugschmidt joined forces with Raphael about 1892 when the liquor house moved  to 320 Fifth Avenue, later renumbered to 1028 Fifth.  There the company blossomed, becoming well-recognized for its proprietary brands of whiskey, “rectified” (blended) on their premises from whiskey stocks shipped from Pennsylvania distilleries.  After preparing the desired blend to insure color, smoothness and flavor, the partners bottled it, slapped on labels and sold at wholesale.

The company used the brand names “Melrose,” "Mount Union,” "P. P. R.,” "Popular "Popular Price Rye,” “Old Raphael” and “Tioga."  After Congress tightened the trademark laws, Mount Union, P.P.R. and Tioga Rye were registered with the government. Tioga was Raphael & Zeugschmidt's flagship brand, advertised widely throughout the Pittsburgh Metro area and beyond.  The name appears to have  been taken from Tioga County located near the north central border of Pennsylvania. 

Among the company’s advertising efforts was a trade card that collectors call a “mechanical,”  in that it requires the viewer to open it. Often these cards had risque' themes and Raphael did not disappoint.  Shown here is a card that before opening depicts a demure lass, loosening her hair,  When opened it has the woman displaying her bloomers to an elderly gent who has been drinking Tioga Rye and is now toasting her lingerie.

Tioga Rye was also advertised on items Raphael & Zeugschmidt gave away to saloons, restaurants and hotels featuring their products.  Among them were shot glasses  that prominently emphasized their name while offering up toasts like “Here’s to you” and “Something Doin’.”  Perhaps the most unusual and expensive giveaway from the wholesale house was a  two-handled “loving cup” beer stein with the picture of William McKinley on one side and William JennIngs Bryan on the other.  Since the two men ran against each other for president twice, McKinley winning both times, the ceramic dates from either 1896 or 1900.

Meanwhile Raphael was having a personal life.  At age 45 apparently tiring of being a bachelor, in 1899 he married.  His bride was Anne E. Isaacs Woolner, 36, who may have been a widow.  “Annie,” as she was known, was originally from Philadelphia. They would have two children, Ralph Isaac, born in 1900, and Irma Gladys, 1902. 

This was a period of continued growth for Raphael’s liquor interests.  A continuing problem for wholesalers, particularly in an era of “Whiskey Trusts” was securing a constant supply of product for blending into their proprietary brands.  Either by contract or investment Raphael found a steady supply by buying into a distillery founded in 1870 in Buffalo Township not far from Freeport, Pennsylvania.  Called The Montrose Distillery (RD#8, 23rd District), it was owned by A. Guckenheimer Bros. of Pittsburgh [See my post on Guckenheimer, April 15, 2012.]

Shown above in a survey drawing, the Montrose employed 12 men in the production of whiskey. The still was made of wood with a capacity of 125 gallons, heated by steam. It supplied two bonded warehouses that had been built in 1876, and 1881, with a combined capacity of around 20,000 barrels.

This acquisition likely led to Raphael expanding into a second liquor business with a new partner, Jacob Adolph, a firm called Raphael-Adolph Company, located at 927 Liberty Avenue (1901-1905) and subsequently at 436 Seventh Avenue (1906-1910).  This company billed itself as “Distillers and Jobbers of Fine Whiskey,” indicating steps beyond the rectifying practices of a wholesale liquor house.  This enterprise had its own set of proprietary brands, including “Blosburg,” "Blosburg Club","Sam Ewart", "Sam Henderson.” and "Pittsburgh Press Club.”  As shown below, this last whiskey may have been the flagship.

With National Prohibition still a long way off, Pennsylvania a reliably “wet” state known for distilling, and Pittsburgh a national center of the liquor trade, Rudolph with his prospering businesses was at a point where he could relax and enjoy the family life he had put off for so long. He moved Annie, Ralph and Irma into a three story mansion home at 332 Stratford Avenue in the Friendship District, a prosperous neighborhood of large Victorian houses in the East End of Pittsburgh.

Ensuing years. however, would bring repeated tragedies to the Raphael family.  In February 1909 Annie died after a two week siege of pneumonia, only 46 years old. During her decade in Pittsburgh she had earned a a reputation for her philanthropic work on behalf of Jewish and other charitable causes.  After a funeral at the family home, she was buried in Philadelphia at Mount Sinai Cemetery.  She and Rudolph had been married only ten years.

Annie’s death left her widower husband with two small children to raise — Ralph was nine; Irma only seven.  As Raphael struggled with his own loss and obligations to his youngsters, his mother Jeanette, living with his sister in Pittsburgh, died the following year.  Whether it was the blows of these losses or some other cause, Raphael’s health faltered and in July 1911, he died at the age of 57, leaving his two minor children orphaned.  After a family funeral Raphael was interred next to Annie in Mount Sinai Cemetery. 

 

 

Whiskey Men in Dangerous Towns

Foreword:   Many saloonkeeper in towns in the “Old West” were accustomed to the sounds of gunfighting.  Often those shots were fired in drunken altercations that may have begun in other saloons and tumbled into theirs.  Most proprietors were able to keep safely out of the way, as with the three publicans briefly profiled here, living in Kansas, Colorado and Texas towns where lawlessness often made for exciting times. 

Known as among the wildest of Wild West communities, Dodge City, Kansas, had a reputation for frequent murders and casual justice.  Neither seemed to deter Henry Sturm, a immigrant saloon keeper and liquor dealer, who faced off in Dodge against formidable opponents —  a gun-toting gang led by Bat Masterson.

A Kansas newspaper in the 1870s reported: “Kansas has but one Dodge City, with a broad expanse of territory sufficiently vast for an empire; we have only room for one Dodge City; Dodge, a synonym for all that is wild, reckless, and violent; Hell on the Plains.” 

Despite these challenges, Sturm prospered.  A year after his arrival he bought the Occidental Saloon, shown below as reconstructed as part of the “Old Dodge” exhibit.  Sturm advertised…”A pint, a keg, or barrel of the very best, old Irish, hot Scotch, six year old hand made sour mash Kentucky copper distilled bourbon or old Holland gin.” 

  

Accustomed to the usual level of Dodge City violence, Sturm’s sternest test came during what was known as “The Saloon War of 1883.”  The conflict began when authorities arrested three women singers at Luke Short’s Long Branch Saloon. When things escalated, Short was banished from Dodge.   Quick with a gun himself, Short was backed by gunslingers like Bat Masterson, shown here, described at the time as “one of the most dangerous men in the West.”  Repairing to Topeka, Kansas, Short and Masterson assembled a gang of gunslingers with the purpose of returning to Dodge and getting revenge.

Sturm put himself on the line, signing an anti-gang telegram on May 13, 1883, to a reluctant Kansas governor, George Washington Glick, asking for state troops.  The saloonkeeper also signed an anti-gang article sent to the Topeka Daily Capital newspaper.  When Masterson and Short threatened to bring their rowdies to Dodge by train, the local sheriff enlisted local guns, including Sturm’s.  High tension gripped the town for days.  In the end, the issues were negotiated and no shots fired. The stalwartness of Sturm and his companions had paid off.

If it is true that every bottle has a story behind it, then the details behind the liquor jug shown left suggests enough material for a novel.   It would document an epic struggle between miners and mine owners in Colorado that involved armed intimidation, “stalag” conditions, shootings, and even murder.  Saloonkeeper Charles Niccoli was in the thick of it all.

Niccoli was born in 1858 in Poings, Italy.  Christened “Pasquale,” he became Charles (or “Charley”) upon arrival about 1884 in the United States, moving eventually to the coal fields of Colorado where he ran a saloon at Hastings. Most Colorado miners lived in these company towns, renting company houses, buying food and supplies in company stories and drinking at saloons controlled by the company.  

 

Charles Niccoli’s ability to rent the saloon building shown left with sign was predicated on his playing along with Victor-American Fuel Company.  This included not objecting to paying the operator each month a per capita sum that might range from 25 to 40 cents for each person whose name appeared upon the company payroll.  By paying off, Niccoli was allowed to enjoy exclusive saloon business in the camps.

Repeated violence in the Colorado coal fields in which protesting miners were murdered, led to Congressional hearings.  One witness told of being privy to a killing by strikebreakers at a Victor-American mine.  When he tried to accompany the body of the dead miner, he was told to “go home and go to sleep.”  Thoroughly frightened, he went to Niccoli’s saloon.  Niccoli was there and the miner asked him who the victim was.  The saloonkeeper scolded him:  “Nobody got shot…You can work—you go out—and you believe nobody got shot.”  Niccoli clearly was in Victor-American’s pocket.

The violence later spilled over into Niccoli’s own family.  In October 1915, seven coal miners, armed with guns and knives, stormed into his Delagua saloon.  A pitched battle ensued in which one man was killed and Charles’ brother, Frank Niccoli was stabbed with a butcher knife.  According to a newspaper account:  “His assailant after inflicting three wounds left the weapon in Niccoli’s back.”  When Charles removed it, Frank fainted but lived.

After Colorado in 1917 adopted a ban on the sale of alcohol of any kind throughout the state Niccoli was forced exit the saloon trade and seek other employment.  By that time he had accumulated considerable wealth from selling whiskey to the miners and owned substantial real estate in Colorado.  In the 1920 census Charles Niccoli. was recorded as owner/operator of a stock ranch and by 1930 as retired.

Daniel “Dan” Breen, shown here, was born in 1866 in a small Ohio town into a family of modest resources, Trained as a railroad telegrapher, Breen “followed the telegraph lines” west to San Antonio, Texas, a town still experiencing violent times.  There he was befriended by a local saloon and gambling kingpin, learned the whiskey business and opened his own saloon on Houston Avenue, a major thoroughfare.  As seen here from a postcard, Breen’s saloon was an upscale place, boasting tile floors, overhead fans in the days before air conditioning, and an ornate bar.

Breen’s very simple business card advertised “wine, liquors, and cigars.” The flip side of the card held a verse with a stanza that would prove prophetic:

“Cutoff in the prime of a useful life,”

The headlines glibly say, —

Or “snatched by the grim reaper”

He has crossed the great highway,

They bury him deep, while a few friends weep,

And the world moves on with a sigh.

San Antonio had not yet seen the end of reckless violence. It would erupt in Dan Breen’s saloon on the night of August 18, 1910.  Dennis Chapin, a wealthy Texas politician and developer who had a town named after him, held a grudge against Oscar J. Roundtree, a former Texas Ranger with a good record. When Chapin invited Roundtree over for a drink, the two had a heated argument over what the newspapers called “old troubles.”  

 

Drawing his eight-shot 45-caliber Colt, Chapin fired at Roundtree five times.  One bullet hole was found in the ceiling of Breen’s saloon, two in the walls, one in a rear screen door, and one squarely in the center of Rountree’s forehead that tore through his brain and exited back of his right ear.  Roundtree died at the San Antonio hospital the following morning.  Later examination found that he had a pistol in his back pocket but had not had an opportunity to draw it. 

Chapin was arrested but released from jail on bond.  At his trial, without any proof, Chapin claimed Roundtree had come to San Antonio to murder him and that he had shot him in self defense. Perhaps awed by his wealth, the jury believed him and after deliberating only 20 minutes voted acquittal.  Chapin. however, did not go unpunished.  His political career was at an end and his reputation plummeted.  The residents of Chapin regretted naming their town for him and officially changed it to Edinburg.

The Ohio native’s reaction to the violence committed in his saloon has gone unrecorded.  Breen operated his saloon until about 1917 when it disappeared from San Antonio directories.  It might have been the result of the tightening noose of prohibition in Texas or an effect of declining health.

Note:  Longer posts on each of these men appear on this site:  Henry Sturm, June 15, 2017;  Charles Niccoli, February 2, 2018, and Dan Breen, May 18, 2019

L. M. Thompson’s Outcry Over “Bone Dry”

                  

Above is a 1917 advertisement sent by the Thompson Straight Whiskey Company of Louisville, Kentucky to its mail order customers all over the United States.  It sounded the alarm of its proprietor, Livingston Mims Thompson, to a recently passed act of Congress that in effect outlawed the importation of whiskey into otherwise “dry” states and localities, even if state laws permitted it. The provision was known as the Reed “Bone Dry” Law.

Even states that outlawed the making and sales of alcoholic beverages within their borders had left loopholes that allowed resident to buy liquor in “wet” states and have it delivered to them in their homes.  This facet of the liquor trade, roundly deplored by prohibitionists, meant that the drinking public could order for their personal use any quantity of whiskey in “dry” Kansas, Maine, Oklahoma, North Dakota, Georgia, Arkansas, Tennessee, Oregon, Colorado and Virginia.  Other dry states put some restrictions on quantities.  Mississippi imbibers could import only a single gallon but as often as desired;  Alabama and South Carolina, twelve gallons annually;  Washington nine gallons annually, and North Carolina six gallons annually. 

Whiskey men catering to this trade organized as the National Association of Mail-Order Liquor Dealers.  At their 1916 annual meeting in Louisville the principal speaker was distiller R. E. Wathen.  The Kentuckian provided an energetic pep talk. “Yours is a practically new avenue of trade, brought into existence by abandonment of another avenue of supply between producer and consumer. …Your line of work is to carry to millions in local option territory through a perfectly legal channel a product that they have a perfectly legal right to have.”

Among those listening intently to Wathen’s words of encouragement was young Livingston Thompson,who would be elected at the meeting as the second vice president of the organization.  Born in 1885 in Georgia to a locally-born father and a Mississippi-born mother, Thompson had come late to the liquor business, moving to Louisville and opening his company in 1910 at the age of 25.  The 1910 census found him there, living with his wife of five years, Helen; their four-year-old daughter, Mary, and a servant woman.

Thompson's reputation rose rapidly in the fast-paced world of Louisville liquor.  He established himself on famed “Whiskey Row,” occupying 111 Main Street, a four story brick building characterized by Renaissance Revival-arched windows  and vertical cast iron columns. 

 The space provided by these quarters allowed him to issue a number of brands for his mail order trade.  They included "Country Club,” “Forelock,”"Lucky Stone,” "Old Kentucky,” "Old Medicinal Corn,” "Old Mountain Corn,” "Thompson Old Reserve,” "Thompson Select,” "Thompson Straight,” "Very Old Special,” and "White Bird Gin.” “Thompson Select” was his flagship label.  The owner never bothered to register any of his brands with the federal government.

Not that Thompson was antagonistic to Washington, D.C., His advertising consistently emphasized that he was fervent believer in the Bottle-in-Bond Act that helped regulate the quality of whiskey.  A company folding trade card depicted Uncle Sam peering through a door at a “The Fakir at Work” who was busy mixing up phony whiskey using a variety of fluids, including “cologne spirits.”  Uncle Sam, shown involved in “Catching the Fakir,” states:  “The label must tell the truth, so always read carefully the label.”

Thompson’s labels provided considerable reading.  Shown here is a bottle of Thompson’s Select Straight Kentucky Whiskey with its wordy label.  Another screed was affixed to the back. The price list Thompson sent his customers listed a wide range of prices for his whiskey, with “Select Straight” topping out at $10.50 for four quarts.  In today’s dollar that would be the equivalent of almost $60 a bottle, very expensive whiskey for the times.  Money may have been no object for those in “parched lands” who could afford good liquor.

The mail order liquor business proved highly successful for Thompson.  He was able to open a branch in Chattanooga, Tennessee.  More important his growing wealth allowed him about 1914 to buy into a distillery. It was the Old Kentucky Distillery in Jefferson County, known in federal records as RD#354, 5th district.  Shown here, this facility had been established sometime before 1880 and knew several owners until sold to Dick Meschendorf in 1892 who changed its name to The Old Kentucky.

Insurance records from that year indicate that the distillery was of frame construction with three warehouses, two of brick with metal or slate roofs and the third ironclad with a similar roof.  Animal pens, where cattle were being fed on  spent mash, were located 115 feet downwind of the still-house.  Records indicate that Thompson was drawing most or all of his whiskey from this facility.

The young proprietor’s success was to be short-lived.  In his 1916 talk to the mail-order liquor dealers an overly-optimistic R. E. Wathen had remarked:  “Not yet has the wrath of the would-be wrecker of that other avenue of trade been turned on you with full force.”  But even as he spoke the Anti-Saloon League had fixed in its gunsights on the mail order liquor trade and the state liquor law loopholes that made it possible.  As an ally they had Senator James A. Reed of Missouri.  Shown right, Democrat Reed had been born in Ohio, moved in maturity to Kansas City to practice law, became its mayor and later a Missouri senator.  A fierce opponent of alcohol, Reed authored the “Bone Dry” Amendment that became law in 1917.

This legislation represented a revolutionary reversal of Congressional policies.  Overturning the right of each state to set policies for the importation of liquor, the Reed Amendment dictated a Federal mandate. States that banned the making or sale of intoxicants but permitted their importation and receipt for personal use found their laws nullified. The Reed Amendment forbid any such imports except for sacramental, medicinal, or scientific purposes — potentially cutting off booze for recreational drinking in the comfort of home for millions of Americans.

Thompson in Louisville was quick to recognize the dagger that had been thrust into the mail order liquor trade.  Although the law had been passed in March 1917, perhaps recognizing the disruption it would cause, Congress delayed its implementation until July 1.  That gave Thompson time to warn his customers of the impending doom.  He issued the statement below, declaring that:  “Our business these many years has been principally selling direct to consumers in local option and prohibition States.  The Reed “Bone Dry” Law…took the main part of this territory….”  He still had a stock of Genuine Old Kentucky whiskey to sell, but warned but he likely would make no effort to produce more, presumably because of the impending loss of his customer base.

The young liquor dealer was not misleading his customers.  The last Louisville business directory entry for the Thompson Straight Whiskey Company was 1918. In the short span of a decade he had made himself one of Louisville’s leading whiskey men, recognized as a genius at the mail order trade, only to be brought low by the Prohibition lobby and Senator Reed.  Two years later Livingston Thompson was dead at the age of 35, cause of death unrecorded. His gravestone is shown here. 

Note:  This post has been gathered from a wide range of sources, including the Wine & Spirits Bulletin of July 1916 that reported the speech by R.E. Wathen.  A “guest-written” piece on the Wathens was posted on this website on August 1, 2020.  A vignette on Dick Meschendorf appeared here on February 5, 2013.

Chandler & Rudd: Partners Riven by Alcohol

It is not an uncommon story for partnerships to be broken up by liquor.  It is one of the most-cited reasons for divorce in America.  But for the well-known Cleveland grocery store called Chandler & Rudd, it was a different story.  That partnership dissolved not because of drinking alcohol, but because of a disagreement on selling it.

In 1864 in the waning years of the Civil War, a grocery specializing in imported foods opened on Euclid Avenue on the south side of Cleveland’s Public Square.  Called the Jones-Potter Company, among its original employees was William Rudd. In 1868 Rudd with partner George Chandler bought out the original owners and changed the name to Chandler & Rudd, beginning a 145 year run for the grocery.

The partners concentrated on fine imported foods, selling French peas, German pickles and English kippered herring.  On their shelves one could find such delicacies as cinnamon from Vietnam, marmalade from Scotland, anchovies from Portugal, and cheeses from all over the world. The Cleveland “carriage trade” took to the grocery enthusiastically.  So much so that the partners in 1889 opened a second store on at 6000 Euclid Avenue in the Willson area, show above. It was followed by third on Euclid in the wealthy suburb of Fairmont Heights.

The larger space allowed Chandler & Rudd to add a bakery. The company also pioneered in the use of taking telephone orders and delivering to customers wherever they lived in the Cleveland area.  Their staff, was known for accommodating any desire.  One said:  “We cater to Cleveland’s upper-income families.  They want the best and we supply it to them.”

Like most specialty grocery stores, Chandler & Rudd sold wines and whiskey to their customers.  The photo of the grocery staff  reveal behind them display cases filled with row after row of whiskey and wine bottles. The partners were selling whiskey, likely blended on their own premises, in ceramic jugs.  Shown below are quart (left) and a half gallon containers.  The label listed the three locations and bore the name “Rudd.” 

 

It was “Rudd’s Whiskey” and William Rudd, shown here, was having misgivings about selling alcohol.  The Temperance Movement had taken shape in the wake of the Civil War with Ohio as a particular “hot spot” for prohibition.  Legions of women were regularly visiting saloons and stores selling liquor and conducting “kneel ins” and praying.  They could count a number of successes as proprietors exited the liquor trade.  Whether it was his family’s importuning or his religious denomination turning against alcohol, Rudd, a sunday school teacher, demanded that the store stop selling wine and whiskey, particularly with his name written in capital letters on the bottles and jugs.

Chandler strongly disagreed, noting that for more than two decades their specialty grocery business had profited handsomely from whiskey and wine. Liquor was a large reason that their enterprise grew to three stores.  Chandler insisted  that the company continue to sell booze. As a result, in 1894, after 26 years of success, Rudd and  Chandler went their separate ways.  Alcohol had led to another bitter divorce.

While keeping the well-recognized name of Chandler & Rudd, in partnership with his brother, William continued in business, taking the Willson and Fairmont stores.   Things changed.  Chandler apparently fancied advertising trade cards that featured attractive women with some bosom evident.  Rudd, on the other hand, was drawn to precious scenes of children.  

Now William’s name was gone from liquor and “candy was dandy.”  Among offerings was Rudd’s Melt-O-Mints, advertised as “mints for the every day.” That slogan highlighted the fact that much of the grocery’s candy was expensive and given at Christmas in the baskets that were a company specialty.

In 1914 the Willson store burned.  Rudd’s brother-in-law was John D. Rockefeller who loaned him the money to rebuild.  By 1934 Chandler & Rudd had nine branch stores, from Lakewood to Shaker Heights.  The Rudd family sold the chain in 1960 to Fred Marino, a produce manager. The Marino family managed the grocery until 2009 when competition in the food business caused Fred Marino Jr. to close the doors permanently after 145 years.

Meanwhile Chandler had not abandoned specialty groceries nor the liquor trade.  He retained ownership of the original downtown store and advertised as the G. C. Chandler Company, Importers and Grocers.  Chandler was president and his son, George N., was secretary and treasurer.  The grocery offerings were still the fancy foods that Clevelanders desired and, of course, he continued to sell whiskey and wine.  Chandler’s enterprise did not endure as long as Rudd’s.  It seems to have disappeared from city directories after 1900.

In almost every divorce there is a winner and a loser.  Given the anti-alcohol fervor that had gripped Ohio, it would appear that Rudd came out on top.  Of course, it never hurts to have John D. Rockefeller as your brother-in-law.