Foreword: For the first time in the dozen years of this website, the amount of photographic and written material available about a Kentucky distillery, forty years in operation, and about its owners is of sufficient magnitude to suggest that the article be presented in two parts. The first segment was devoted to the distillery founder James Hampton Rogers. This vignette features his wife, Lida Clarke Rogers, and their son, the subsequent distillery owners.
With the death of James H. Rogers in 1890, the distillery he had founded about 1879 was now the willed property of his widow, Lida Clarke Rogers, age 38. Shown here as a girl of 16, Lida had a distinguished ancestry dating from the Revolutionary War. She was a direct descendant through her mother, of two well recognized war heroes, both with Kentucky roots, Jesse Hord and Francis Triplett.
Hord was an officer in the Virginia militia during the Revolution. After the end of hostilities he emigrated to Kentucky in 1786 and settled on Mill Creek in Mason County where he gained a reputation as a famous hunter and Indian fighter. Hord died in 1814. Triplett commanded the Virginia militia at the 1781 Battle of Cowpens, South Carolina, and for his valor received a sword from the Continental Congress. After the war Captain Triplett became a wealthy landowner and at his death in 1794 reputedly left 37,000 acres of prime land in Kentucky to his children. Although eligible for DAR membership, Lida did not join, but her daughter later did.
For Lida’s father, however, military service proved not so salutary. Young John R. Clarke trained for the law and was received into the bar at the age of 24. He seemingly was highly successful in the legal profession and in the 1860 census claimed assets approaching $180,000 in today’s dollar. Despite this wealth, a growing family, and Confederate influence in Kentucky, at 34 years old Clarke chose to join the Union Army. After serving through most of the conflict, whether the result of wounds or sickness, he died in a military hospital at Camp Nelson, Kentucky, and was buried on the grounds — now a national cemetery. His wife, Mary, was left to raise Lida and her brother, Frank.
From all indications, Lida’s girlhood without a father found the family relatively well off. The photo above, taken when she was only 16 years old, shows her wearing a hat with two birds mounted on the top, the fashion rage at the time. When she was 21, she married James Rogers and settled down to the life of a wife, mother, and homemaker. In the photo shown here she sits dutifully beside her husband. No evidence exists that Lida was given any responsibilities for operating the Rogers distillery at Devil’s Backbone, shown below. Now it was hers. After what may have been several difficult years she persuaded her brother, Frank H. Clarke, to return to manage the facility. Frank had left Maysville for Chicago as a young man and was an employee of the Board of Trade in that city.
In agreeing to return as general manager and bookkeeper for the distillery, Frank required that while being willing to take directions from Lida he annually be given one-fourth of the net profits from all whiskey the company sold. He also was paid a salary, from which his expenses were to be deducted.. The agreement was not a partnership: Her brother was to act under Lida’s “supervision and control and as she might order and direct in the management of the business.” Although the duration of this contract was left uncertain, it prevailed for 19 productive years.
During that time, Lida Rogers made a major decision affecting the future of the J.H. Rogers Distillery, shown above: She put the facility under the aegis of the Bottled in Bond Act of 1897. As a reaction to widespread adulteration in American whiskey, the Act made the federal government the guarantor of a spirit's authenticity, gave producers a tax incentive for participating, and helped ensure proper accounting and the eventual collection of the taxes due. Two Kentuckians had played a prominent role in its passage, John C. Carlisle, Secretary of the Treasury in the Cleveland Administration, and Col. Edmund Taylor, a prominent distiller who lobbied the bill in Congress.
By enthusiastically endorsing the Act Lida was casting her lot with the quality whiskey makers not only of Kentucky, but of the country. Company participation was prominently displayed on advertisements and every whiskey label. Shown above are examples.
During ensuing years Lida became recognized in Kentucky as highly competent business executive — and an increasingly rich one. Her wealth allowed her to purchase what arguably is the most famous mansion in Maysville, known as “Phillips’ Folly,” shown below. Begun in 1825 for merchant and community leader, Wiliam B. Phillips, the house was not completed until years later. As a result, some suggest, it represents no single architectural mode, combining Federal, Greek Revival and Georgian styles. Phillips lived in the house less than a year before selling to what became a series of short term owners until Lida Rogers bought it in 1904.
She made it a home for herself and for her daughter, also Lida, now Mrs. Darlington Fee. The household included Lida’s husband, two grandchildren, both girls, and a Filipino nurse. This must have been a particularly happy time for the matriarch, surrounded by family. In 1910 Lida turned over ownership of “Phillips Folly” to the Fees. At the time she was experiencing heart problems that would end her life in April 1911. She died at age 58.
Her death occasioned obituaries in both Maysville newspapers. Said the Daily Public Register: “She was one of Maysville’s prominent residents, a cultured woman with a strong and bright mind….She was generous and kind, but did not parade her benefactions, and many will miss her generous and kindly help in hours of distress and misfortune.” The Daily Bulletin termed Lida “a most excellent Christian lady.” Its story noted: A singular coincidence in the death of Mrs. Rogers was that she died at 4 o’clock, April 24, and her husband died at 4 o’clock on the morning of June 24, twenty-one years ago.” Neither paper mentioned her success at running a distillery.
Lida Rogers’ funeral service was held in her home, with an Episcopalian priest conducting the service, despite her being identified as “a devout believer in the Christian Science faith.” She was buried in the Maysville Cemetery next to James Rogers. Her gravestone is shown here.
Lida’s death resulted in a notable rift in the distilling family. The agreement she had made with Frank Clarke gave him no right to distillery ownership. The property was inherited by her son, John Clarke Rogers, known as “Clarke.” He appears to have worked at the distillery under his uncle and the relationship may have been an uneasy one. Once he controlled the distillery, nephew Clarke wasted no time in firing Frank Clarke. The uncle filed suit against the company claiming the was owed a portion of the profits on whiskey distilled under his supervision and aging in the company warehouse but yet unsold. He took his nephew to court. A Mason County Circuit Court judge, citing the original employment agreement, disagreed. Not deterred, Frank appealed to a higher Kentucky court and again was turned away.
Now charged with managing the Devil’s Backbone faciity, often called the Limestone Distillery after its flagship brand, John Clarke Rogers proved as able in the ownership role as his father and mother had been. By that time he was married to Mary Huston January, daughter of Maysville residents Horace and Louisa January. The couple would have three children in rapid succession, Louise, 1903, James, 1904, and Horace, 1905, who died in infancy. Clarke Rogers provided his family and a live-in servant with the comfortable home at 400 West Second Street in Maysville shown here.
The young man faced two principal challenges during his tenure. First, Whiskey Trust executives were pressuring Kentucky distillers to sell out and become part of the monopoly or agree to sell whiskey to them exclusively. Many smaller distillers had succumbed. Clarke, however, stood firmly independent, continuing to make and distribute the Limestone Old Fashioned Sour Mash brand created by his father. A second challenge came from the rising tide of anti-alcohol sentiment, drastically reducing potential markets for whiskey. Undaunted, Clarke is recorded doing business right into 1920 when National Prohibition was imposed. He had guided the family distillery through its fourth decade.
Only 46 years old when the distillery closed, Clarke subsequently became storage manager for the Kentucky Burley Tobacco Growers Coop. As he aged, heart disease, cited for causing the deaths of both his father and mother, began to plague him. After suffering from chronic myocarditis for a dozen years, John Clarke Rogers died in July 1934. He lies buried not far from his parents in the Rogers family plot.
Note: Once again, thanks go to Cay Camness, Marla Toncray, and the Kentucky Gateway Museum Center for their assistance in providing the photos and other materials important to completing this second post on the Rogers distilling family of Maysville, Kentucky.
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