Tipsy Fish & the Neversink Distillery Four

On Christmas Day 1913, fish in the Schuykill River near Exeter Station, Pennsylvania, suddenly got gloriously drunk, according to onlookers who made easy catches of them.  Good luck for the anglers, however, was the result of severe damage at the nearby Neversink Distillery, a whiskey-making facility that occupied the energies of four men during almost six decades.

The Founder:  The Neversink had its origins in a distillery that Samuel Buch established at Eleventh and Muhlenberg Streets in Reading, Pennsylvania, about 1861.  For the next twenty years he operated at that location, advertising as a maker of “pure wheat, rye and malt whiskey.”  Company offices and his liquor store were located at 527 Penn Street, the building shown here as it looks today.

Born in Pennsylvania in 1915, Buch had entered the liquor trade some years earlier, perhaps to support a growing family.  At the age of 26 he had married a local girl of 18 named Elizabeth.  According to the 1860 census, the couple soon began a family of five children that eventually ranged in age from twenty down to one year.  Samuel prospered as a liquor dealer, showing an 1860 net worth of $800,000 in today’s dollar.  It was enough to allow him the finances to build his own distillery.   An 1881 Reading map depicted his plant as a leading Reading industry.  Buch’s flagship brands were “Redding Rye” and “Neversink Mountain Rye.”  The latter apparently took its name from the Neversink River, a 55-mile long tributary of the Delaware River in Southeastern New York. 

Some time in the early 1880s, Samuel looked around for more space for whisky-making.  He found it in a small town called Exeter Station about eight miles south of Reading.  Although the site had historical importance as the home of Mordecai Lincoln Jr., the great-great grandfather of Abraham Lincoln, Buch’s interest was the ease of transporting supplies of grain to his distillery.  Not only was Exeter Station, shown here, on a main railroad line, it had easy river access and a major highway running through it.  There Samuel built his new distillery.  The photo below appears to show the still house left and the warehouse right, the latter said capable of holding 12,000 barrels of aging whiskey.

The Soldier Son:  As soon as he reached his middle teens, Lemon Buch, Samuel’s firstborn, had been put to work as a clerk in the Redding liquor store.  That career was interrupted with the advent of the Civil War in 1861. Lemon would go on to compile an outstanding war record.  Four times during the conflict he enlisted with a new Pennsylvania army unit only to be honorably discharged at the end of the term of service.  He repeatedly re-enlisted in a matter of days.  Beginning as a humble private Lemon rose through the ranks to sergeant and then to first lieutenant.  Over the course of his service, he saw hot combat in such battles as Antietam, Gettysburg and Chancellorsville, the latter illustrated above.

Resigning his commission at the end of the war, Lemon returned to Reading where, with his younger brother, he took over the family liquor business, changing the name to L. & H. Buch, Importers and Wholesale Dealers in Wines and Liquors.  As shown on an 1886 letterhead, the company featured Neversink Mountain Rye as a specialty.

In time, Henry left and the Reading liquor house became simply Lemon Buch’s.  The war hero son seemed to have a genius for merchandising, gifting his wholesale customers such as saloons and hotels die cut signs and advertising shot glasses featuring his proprietary brands.

The Developers:  Adolph H. Kretz and John H. Close bought the distillery in 1892.  Both were liquor dealers in the Reading area. Kretz, shown here in maturity, had been born in 1854 in that city, his father an immigrant tailor from Bavaria.  His father having died while he was still a youngster, Adolph early on was sent to work.  With capabilities as a builder as well as merchant he had prospered in Reading.  Close, the younger of the partners, was born in nearby Stonersville, Berks County, in 1863, the son of a local liquor dealer.  While still in his teens he took up the trade with his father and had prospered.

The partners renamed the Exeter Station facility the Neversink Distilling Co., Inc., and expanded its mashing  capacity to 434 bushels daily.  They also build a second warehouse, the interior shown here, able to hold 25,000 barrels of aging whiskey.  They commissioned an artist’s drawing of the distillery shown below that emphasized its access to rail transit, including what seems to be a railroad spur into the plant. 

In May 1899 a horrendous train wreck at Exeter Station killed 29 passengers.  The disaster left such a deep wound on the psyche of residents that the name of the village was changed to “Lorane,” as it is known today.  That name appears on the Neversink Distillery bottle of Reading Rye shown here.

Kretz and Close operated the distillery without incident for more than two decades until that fateful day in 1913.  Exeter Station/Lorane was rocked by an explosion at the Neversink Distillery.  According to reports the blast was caused by the formation of gases in the bottom of a large cauldron containing 12,500 gallons of mash in the process of fermenting.  The force of the explosion destroyed the vessel and smashed other equipment. Windows were blown out allowing a torrent of alcoholic mash to cascade out of the stillhouse. The wave flooded over the railroad tracks, coursed down the river bank, and poured into the Schuylkill River.

Because it was Christmas Day no one was in the building to be killed or injured. The only immediate casualties seem to have been fish.  As reported in the Reading Eagle:  “…The fish in the river are on a glorious drunk and people are catching them in large numbers along the river bank here and for miles below this point.”  A final irony:  The name “Neversink” is the corruption of an Algonquin Indian word meaning “mad river.”  The Schuylkill, indeed, had gone crazy.

Federal records of subsequent activity at the Neversink Distillery indicate that Kretz and Close repaired the damage and stayed in business until the onset of National Prohibition in 1920.  The distillery did not reopen after Repeal in 1934.  At the end Samuel, Lemon, Adolph and John had devoted themselves to the existence of the Neversink Distillery for a total of 59 years. 

Note:  Although the information and images have been drawn from multiple sources, essential to the story line was information provided on the Internet credited to George M. Meiser IX, whom I assume is or was a local Berks County historian.