When Edward Morris “E.M.” Rusha arrived in New Orleans in 1825 as a precocious 14-year-old, his Philadelphia accent must have marked him apart from the general Creole-speaking population of the city. During the ensuing half century in the “Big Easy” as a major wine and liquor dealer, Rusha adopted, if not the patois, the mores of his adopted Southern town. They included engaging in the slave trade and supporting the Confederacy. Nonetheless, he emerged from the Civil War a wealthy man.
Born in Philadelphia in 1811, Rusha even as a teenager had shown an adventurous personality. Why he chose New Orleans, some 1,200 miles from his birthplace is unclear. He apparently quickly found employment there and adapted readily to his new environment. When his father died not long after he left home, Rusha saved sufficient money to bring his mother to New Orleans and give her a home with him.
Two years later, at age 22, Rusha would have sufficient savings to open a wholesale liquor house at 54-58 Girod Street between Tchoupitoulas and Commerce Streets. Shown here in a drawing the store was an impressive three-story building. He advertised widely as “E.M. Rusha, Importer of Foreign Wines and Liquors and Dealer in Domestic Spirits.” He seems to have enjoyed rapid success. The local press frequently reported that a shipment of 50, 80 or 100 barrels of whiskey were on their way to him aboard steamships like the S. S. Le Compte, shown here.
Four years after opening his business, Rusha, now 26, marrried a local woman, Mary Ann Sherman. Over the several decades the couple would have a large family, given in genealogical sites variously as 11 to 14 children. As they reached maturity Rusha would put them to work in the store, stocking shelves and waiting on customers.
 |
| An elderly slave |
As he enjoyed success in New Orleans the Yankee businessman was embracing Southern ways. In November 1850 he ran an ad in the New Orleans Crescent newspaper offering this “For Sale” notice: “An old Negro Woman, a good Cook and Washer, to a good master will be sold at a bargain. Apply to E.M. Rusha, 24 Girod Street.” The ad gives no clue about whether the black slave woman had been employed in his household or whether he had acquired her in payment of a debt. New Orleans was a premier center for the slave traffic. Rusha’s ad tacitly admits that elderly slaves, like the one pictured here, had little market value. Rusha suggests that reality by offering her “at a bargain” to “a good master” — as if he would have any say about her treatment after the sale.
The 1850s decade was one of continuing prosperity for Rusha as he expanded his activities into other business ventures, including buying and selling land and acting as a cotton broker, lucrative pursuits fueled by his liquor profits. In the national census of 1860, he reported owning $50,000 in real estate and personal estate value of $20,000, the total equivalent of roughly $2.7 million today. Recognized as a local leader, by 1855 he had been appointed to the civic committee that that regulated the New Orleans Work House and Prison, the latter shown above.
Rusha’s world changed radically with the dawning of the 1860s and the advent of the Civil War. Now a thoroughgoing Southerner, Rusha was strongly for the Rebellion. His son, Edward Jr., apparently with his father’s blessing, was an early volunteer, joining the Louisiana Regiment Fifth Infantry as a corporal in Company E. in June 1861 and stationed at Camp Moore. As befell many new recruits, young Edward soon was stricken by disease, probably malaria, and given an honorable discharge for ”sickness” by October. Rusha himself held the rank of 2nd Lieutenant in the Louisiana Militia but saw no action.
 |
| General Butle |
The Confederacy held New Orleans for more than a year after the war began during which period Rusha was forced to close down his cotton brokerage but continued to sell liquor. In April 1862, however, New Orleans fell to Yankee forces, the Louisiana State flag was removed, and for the remainder of the conflict the city was under Federal military control. Although an advocate of coffee for his troops, Gen. Benjamin Butler, and his successors as military governor, understood that the occupying troops would be discontented without stronger beverages. They allowed liquor sales, with controls, to continue.
Rusha was willing to play along. Generally unable to access pre-war “wines, liquors and domestic spirits,” he turned to fabricating his own alcohol-laced medicinal, calling it “Dr. DeAndries Pure Sarsaparilla Bitters.” Introducing the nostrum during wartime 1863, Russa advertised it vigorously with claims that his bitters were “the best Preventative for Health ever introduced into this Country. As a general drink they are exhilarating; they give tone to the stomach, being free from all impurities.” Additionally, in ads he claimed his medicinal was “purely vegetable” apparently counting corn in liquid form as part of that food group. This “Reb” even went so far as to hint in an ad aimed at his New Orleans occupiers that General Grant regarded Dr. DeAndries Bitters as preventing cholera, an ever-present threat in those days. As shown here, the nostrum was sold in amber bottles.
Despite the postwar absence of Union troops that had created a thirsty customer base, Rusha survived the financial woes that plagued the South. Although New Orleans was subject to the unrest and economic stresses of the Reconstruction Era, the city remained an important port on the Gulf of Mexico. E. M. Rusha’s liquor house lived on almost two decades following the war. It disappeared from business directories after 1883 when its 72-year old proprietor apparently retired.
 |
| Odd Fellows Emblem |
Although Rusha seems not to have had any compunctions about selling slaves or siding with the Confederacy or making dubious claims about the health benefits of his bitters, as he aged he apparently had a moral dilemma about his membership in a fraternal organization called the International Order of Odd Fellows (IOOF). As an upward ambitious young man trying to establish himself in an alien society, Rusha had joined the semi-secret organization and worked his way through the ranks to becoming New Orleans “Grand Master” by 1868.
Although membership proved commercially and socially advantageous to Rusha, it had its downside. His wife, Mary Ann was a Catholic and the couple had been married in a Catholic church. Under canon law, Catholics were forbidden to join organizations that were held to be heretical. The Odd Fellows, founded in England and brought to America in 1819, was a quasi-religious society with its own priests, altars, ritual worship and funeral ceremonies. As a result, the IOOF was among the proscribed.
No record exists about the tensions that the IOOF might have caused Rusha in his home life. After the early deaths of three of his children and in 1890, of Mary Ann, his wife of 53 years, Rusha apparently had a crisis of conscience about his membership. After consulting with Catholic clergy, in 1891 he renounced his ties to the organization and became a Catholic. By then of advanced age himself Rusha already had suffered two strokes. According to press accounts he was in discussion with a Catholic priest in August 1893 when a third stroke took his life.
Given the last rites of the Church and a funeral Mass, Rusha, age 82, was buried in an above ground crypt in the historic Lafayette Cemetery. He lies next to Mary Ann and other family members, as shown below. An obituary in a local newspaper, commenting on Rusha’s having lived in New Orleans for 71 years, noted: “During that long period he proved himself a worthy and exemplary citizen.” To which I would add: But not immune from controversy then and now.
Note: This post would not have been possible without the cooperation of Ferd Meyer, former president of the Federation of Historical Bottle Collectors, whose Peachridge Glass website has documented so well the lives and achievements of the men and women behind the production of “medicinal” bitters and their containers. Relying on Ferd’s post of February 19, 2019 for references and illustrations, together with my own research, I have tried to put Ed Rusha’s life into the historical context of New Orleans during the 1800s.
No comments:
Post a Comment