John O’Neil and Vermont’s “Dry” Laws

John O’Neil was a liquor dealer in Whitehall, New York, doing a thriving mail trade into neighboring Vermont. In December 1882,in what is often referred to as “The Jug Case,” O’Neil was convicted in Vermont on 307 counts of selling whiskey by mai and shipping it from New York to Vermont, contrary to Vermont’s prohibition law.  He was given a severe fine and sentenced to hard labor for 19,914 days (54 Years) if the fine was not paid by a specific date.  

The case went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court and dragged on for almost ten years.  In the end O’Neil paid a smaller fine and may have spent some time behind bars.   Writing about O’Neil’s legal woes in Vermont courts, the distinguished American legal scholar Alan Westin wrote:  “In any event, whether he broke Vermont granite for decades or became a pioneer father of California, O’Neil’s place in American constitutional history is secure.”

The story begins in Maine where Portland mayor and Prohibition zealot Neil Dow had engineered the first statewide “dry” law. (See post on Dow September 14, 2021.)  Shown here, Dow came to Vermont’s Statehouse to lobby for a similar alcohol ban in 1852.  The Women’s Christian Union and other groups joined to vote Vermont “dry” the following year.  Although the total ban eventually was lifted, it was in force long enough to embroil John O’Neil — severely.

Born in Vermont, O’Neil was the son of Irish immigrants, Edward and Mary O’Neil.  According to 1870 census data, his father was a laborer as was John at age 18.  Three years later the youth wed Anna M. Conline, both 21. They would have two children, John James and Louis. His new role as a family man likely triggered O’Neil’s changing occupations, moving a few miles south across the Vermont border to own and operate a liquor store in Whitehall, New York.

O’Neil had a sense of the artistic for his liquor containers.  Buying his whiskey by the barrel, he decanted it into ceramic jugs of varying sizes for sale.  As many Eastern dealers, he preferred to market containers that bore labels in cobalt hand applied script, bearing his name and often the city. (One, top left, recently sold for $475.)  O’Neil also offered a line of beers, advertising as a bottler of Schlitz and employing clear blob-top bottles as containers. 

Meanwhile Vermont legislators, taking their lead from Dow and the WCTU, voted to make the entire state “dry,” banning the production and sale of all alcohol, except for Communion wine and medicinal purposes.  Subsequently put to a public vote the ban prevailed  22,315 to 21,794, a margin of only 521 votes statewide.  Meanwhile in Whitehall, O’Neil was neither making or selling whiskey in Vermont, but his sales there were booming, protected, he apparently believed, by the process.  It worked this way:  O’Neil would receive orders from Vermont through the railroad.  The orders came on cards with a Vermont address and the order attached to a jug.  In Whitehall, O’Neil would fill the jug, pack it, and send it back to the addressee by rail with a bill for “cash on delivery”  The money was collected by railroad personnel and returned to the O’Neil in New York.

In Vermont, however, customs officials and state police were on alert. It had been noted that liquor supplies coming from New York had increased substantially despite all efforts to control them.  In 1882 a complaint was lodged against O’Neil  fueling an investigation.  He was charged with 475 offenses in trafficking liquor and wine into Rutland, Vermont.  A trial was held at the Rutland Courthouse, a supreme irony:  Rutland was the place of O’Neil’s birth, he considered it his home town, and many years later he would be buried there.

Rutland Courthouse

Although O’Neil essentially had only been charged with a single count of a jug being sent into Rutland, a local judge and jury through some dubious reasoning and fanciful mathematics sentenced him on 307 counts of violating Vermont’s prohibition law.   O’Neil was fined $6,140 dollars (more than $200,000 in today’s dollar) and sentenced to 19,914 days of hard labor (54 years) if the fine was not paid by a given date.  The threatened punishment was in excess of sentences for much more serious crimes including armed robbery, forgery and manslaughter.

Chief Justice Blatchford

Over the next six years O’Neil appealed his case through the Vermont court system all the way to the United State Supreme Court.  Although the matter reached the High Court in 1889, the justices did not rule until almost another three years had elapsed.  Then, in an opinion written by Chief Justice Samuel Blatchford, the Court majority decided that it lacked jurisdiction to rule against Vermont and in effect let the draconian verdict stand.

Justice Field

The majority decision, however, did not go unchallenged by a court minority.  In a dissenting opinion, Justice Steven Johnson Field, joined by two other justices, took strong objection to the majority opinion.  Shown here, Field wrote:  “The punishment imposed was one exceeding in severity, considering the offenses of which the defendant was convicted, anything which I have been able to find in the records of our courts for the present century…. Had he been found guilty of burglary or highway robbery, he would have received less punishment than for the offenses of which he was convicted. It was six times as great as any court in Vermont could have imposed for manslaughter, forgery, or perjury. It was Field which, in its severity, considering the offenses of which he was convicted, may justly be termed both 'unusual and cruel.’

Field continued: “The state has the power to inflict personal chastisement, by directing whipping for petty offenses,—repulsive as such mode of punishment is,—and should it, for each offense, inflict 20 stripes, it might not be considered, as applied to a single offense, a severe punishment, but yet, if there had been 307 offenses committed, the number of which the defendant was convicted in this case, and 6,140 stripes were to be inflicted for these accumulated offenses, the judgment of mankind would be that the punishment was not only an unusual, but a cruel one, and a cry of horror would rise from every civilized and Christian community of the country against it.”

In reality, O’Neil’s chances of appeal having been exhausted, he faced an order in 1894 committing him to the House of Correction in Rutland for one month (some accounts say two) and ordered to pay more than $6,000 in fines and court costs.  Because the prison records subsequently were destroyed by fire, there is no way of knowing how much time O’Neil actually served.  It can be assumed he paid the heavy fine.  During ensuing  years Vermont’s liquor laws themselves loosened.   After another referendum, the state in 1903 restored “local option.”

As proclaimed by Alan Westin above, John O’Neil indeed had written his name in American judicial history — to his personal peril.  He subsequently returned to a more normal life in Whitehall, residing at 21 Canal Street.  The 1900 census found him there, 48 years old, with wife Annie.  His occupation was given as owner of a “combination store,” perhaps indicating some expansion of his inventory beyond liquor and beer. 

By the time of the 1915 New York State census, O’Neil had retired.  The much persecuted liquor dealer lived to be 77 years old, long enough to see National Prohibition imposed, prove to be a disaster, and repealed.   Having sufffered a fatal stroke in 1935, O’Neil was buried in the family plot in Calvary Cemetery.  Ironically the site was in Rutland, Vermont — focal point of all the whiskey man’s troubles.  Wife Annie had preceded him there by 22 years, dying in 1913.

Note:  Much has been written about the case of O’Neil vs. State of Vermont, leaving an almost decade long record of trials and judicial opinions ranging from a Rutland justice of the peace to United States Supreme Court Justices, followed by multiple opinions from Constitutional scholars.  It continues to be an excellent example of judicial overreach.  The post, however, lacks a photo O’Neil.  I am hoping that some alert descendant will remedy that omission.

 

 

Mannie Hyman — Leadville’s Premier Saloonkeeper

The first saloon opened in Leadville, Colorado, in 1877, followed by hundreds more of varying character.  The city’s most notable “watering hole” was Hyman’s on Harrison Avenue.  Hugely popular, the Leadville saloon became famous for occasional gun play, celebrity visitors and general hi-jinx.  Overseeing the totality of those “attractions” — and reaping the profits — was its immigrant proprietor, Mannie (sometimes given as Manny) Hyman.

Hyman was born in May 1851 in Schwersenz, then part of the Prussian Empire, now part of Poland (Swarzedz), the town shown here.  Possibly to avoid conscription into the Prussian Army where many died in basic training, at the age of about 15 he exited Germany and sailed to America, landing in New York about 1866.  From there his trail grows cold.  Hyman next surfaced in 1879, age 18, living in the Colorado mountains at Kokomo, Summit County.  Once a gold and silver mining community of 10,000, today it is a ghost town.

 Hyman had gained experience in the liquor trade and sufficent funds to start a saloon and liquor store in the boom town.  His enterprise ended in October 1881 when a fire broke out, reportedly caused by a faulty lamp. Kokomo had no way to fight the flames.  Most of the town was destroyed, including Hyman’s saloon, a $3,500 loss.  While he may have rebuilt temporarily, he did not stay long in Kokomo.

The German immigrant turned his interests toward mining.  By March, 1880, Hyman owned the Grand View Mine and, according to the Leadville Weekly Democrat, the site was in in great demand from investors and speculators. “Mr. Hyman is constantly receiving letters and telegrams from parties wishing to purchase the property…”  By the following year Hyman also had mining interest at a location near Kokomo called “Gold Hill.”  Unsatisfied by his mining returns, however, Hyman yearned to return to the liquor trade.  

He found it in nearby Leadville, shown above.  By 1880, this town was one of the world's largest and richest silver camps, with a population of more than 15,000, Income from more than thirty mines and ten large smelting works producing gold, silver, and lead amounting to $15,000,000 annually.  In the early autumn of 1882  Hyman purchased the Leadville saloon license held by two locals at 314 Harrison Avenue, and later bought the adjoining storefront at 316 Harrison.  Those addresses would become central to his Leadville “watering hole” for years to come, as shown on the fire map below.

Happenings at Hyman’s’s.  Mannie’s drinking establishment rapidly became the most popular venue in Leadville.  Located on a major downtown street, it adjoined the city’s prime theater, the Tabor Opera House, property of Colorado millionaire, Horace Tabor. (See post on the Tabors, April 14, 2018.)  An 1880s photo shows the theatre right of Hyman’s saloon.  Across the street from the Opera House was the Clarendon Hotel, Leadville’s premier hostelry.  It housed celebrities and actors who performed at the theater.  As the result of these attractions, Hyman's bar, below, was a popular hangout.

Among them was Oscar Wilde, the famed British author, playwright and wit, who was on a lecture tour of the United States, apparently not fearing to appear in the “Wild West.”  Shown here he appeared at the Tabor Opera House on April 14, 1882. Speaking on the topic “The Decorative Arts,” Wilde is reported to have drawn a large Leadville audience.  After his lecture he  found time to visit Hyman’s Place for drinks.  Wilde later commented: "Where I saw the only rational method of art criticism.  I have come across, over the piano, printed a notice: Please do not shoot the pianist. He is doing his best.”

Other prominent visitors were “Unsinkable” Molly Brown, survivor of the Titanic disaster, and her considerably older husband, James J. Brown, a millionaire Colorado mine owner and engineer.  The Browns had acquired  great wealth in 1893 when Brown was instrumental in the discovery of a substantial gold ore seam at the Little Jonny Mine. They are shown here with their children.   A popular motion picture later would be made about the couple.  

Brown wrote his name in the history of Hyman’s saloon, the result of a tussle he had with another patron after accidentally bumping into him.  They exchanged insults.  Then matters got physical.  A reporter for the local newspaper told the story:  “The result was that Brown seized a chair and was about to resolve it into its original elements over Chamberlain’s head, but instead of the intended object getting it, an innocent and unsuspecting chandelier that was looking down on the fight, received the full benefit of the blow.”   And fell.  According to witnesses, Hyman’s chandelier knocked out Brown and his opponent was left unhurt.  Both men were arrested, fined $5 and court costs. 

A more serious altercation occurred at Hyram’s two years later involving the Western gunman, “Doc” Holiday, the dentist turned gunslinger and participant in the famous Gunfight at OK Corral.  Now sick and impoverished, Holiday was working for Hyman dealing cards when confronted by Billy Allen to whom he owed $5.   Although witnesses claimed Allen was unarmed and simply wanted to talk, Holiday testified he thought he was being attacked. He drew his gun and fired.  As proof of Holiday’s infirmity, the first bullet was wild, lodging in the front door.  A second  bullet hit Allen in the arm, a wound from which he later recovered.  Holiday was incarcerated.  After lengthy court procedures that received wide press attention, the dentist turned gunfighter was acquitted of attempted murder and released.  He left Leadville and died of tuberculosis two years later.

Hi-jinks at Hyman’s involved the proprietor himself. When two customers ordered a bottle of German white wine, the men bet Mannie $50 that the bottle was a not a genuine import.  Mannie took the bet and offered to double the amount.  The men agreed. Three Denver liquor importers were recruited to taste the wine and determine its authenticity.  They confirmed it.  Mannie collected $100 dollars.

In late 1883, A man approached Mannie with the story that the body of a “petrified” man had been located 50 miles south of Leadville.  He suggested the stone corpse could be displayed as an attraction at the saloon. Mannie agreed to finance an elaborate effort to recover the oddity.  Further investigation found that instead of a calcinated corpse, the body was a frozen stiff dead man. The deal fell apart. Mannie reportedly lost $1,000 in the escapade.

Mannie’s Business Philosophy.  In December of 1883, a reporter stopped at Hyman’s Place to ask about the proprietor’s success over the past year.   Gold and silver deposits were dwindling, the population of Leadville was declining, and many businesses, including saloons, were feeling the pinch.  Despite such concerns, Hyman’s establishment was always crowded and the owner continued to be a genial host.  Why, the reporter asked, was this so?

Normally reticent, Mannie opened up to the inquiry: “‘I never like to talk about myself or my business to a newspaper man… but if a discovery of a ‘secret’ as you call it, will relieve your anxiety, I shall be happy to unfold it to you.  One prime reason of my success is found in the fact that my patrons are treated alike, without discrimination as to wealth, worldly position or the clothes they wear. As a caterer to the public, I depend upon the public for success, and do not extend any more favors to the mining prince than I give to his humble employee. In my opinion all men are alike so long as they conduct themselves as gentlemen, and my employees have instructions to insult nobody until they are insulted. That is one of the reasons of my success, and, I believe the principal one.

Ask by the journalist to suggest other positive attributes, Mannie continued by saying:  ‘Well, I sell the best goods in the market at prices which rob neither my patrons or myself. I do not claim to sell better goods than my competitors. I merely claim to keep as good a stock as anyone else, and sell it as cheaply as anyone else….I have done an extensive business during the past year, for which I am very thankful to the public of Leadville.”

Mannie In and After Leadville.  As a leading businessman, Hyman was frequently solicited to make contributions to Leadville charitable causes.  In addition to being a generous donor, he had his own causes.  A staunch Republican, he financed a private poll of Leadville’s voting population.  An avid fan of baseball,  he was a director and major funder of the “moderately successful” Leadville Baseball Club.  Mannie also raised funds for a medallion honoring George W. Cook; a Rio Grand Western Railroad employee who orchestrated rescue efforts following an avalanche at the Homestake Mine. 

During this period Mannie fell in love. Her name was Fannie Goldman.  Originally from Chicago, Fannie came to Leadville in 1866 to visit her aunt and uncle, a local merchant.  The couple met during a fishing trip that included a number of prominent local businessmen.  Mannie, a 35-year old bachelor, was immediately taken with the younger Fannie. The couple announced their engagement to Leadville newspapers in September of that year and married in Chicago on February 1, 1887.  The marriage seemingly spurred Hyman’s disengagement from both his saloon and Leadville.

As Mannie sold off his assets, including Hyman’s Place on Harrison Street,  above, the Leadville Herald Democrat commented:   “The revenues that have been derived from this property since it was purchased by Hyman a few years ago, have been something enormous, and to-day it is regarded as one of the most valuable of the avenue possessions.  Taking his profits and Fanny with him, Hyman moved to Denver.  There he opened up a tobacco shop, advertising as “State agent for Palacios, Rodriquez & Co.’s celebrated Aurcliae clear Havana cigars, at wholesale. A full fine stock.”

The following years seemingly proved difficult for Hyman.  The tobacco business in Denver seemingly did not go well.  Moreover Mannie and Florence’s marriage hit the rocks and in 1911 the couple divorced.  There were no children.  Mannie moved out of Denver to live in New York City, his occupation, if any, unknown.  He is recorded living in a boarding house until his death in May 1924 at the age of 73.  In Leadville Hyman had been an important personage; in New York he was just another elderly man walking the streets of Manhattan.

Notes:  This post would not have been possible without information provided by  Temple Beth Israel and its website JewishLeadville.org.  Their article about Mannie Hyman and his saloon was invaluable.  Although the website also provides many photos of Leadville residents, unfortunately Hyman’s picture is not among them.

 

 

A Sly Peek at Risqué Bitters Ads

 While most bitters did not have the same alcohol content as whiskey, they almost always eclipsed the amount found in wine and beer.  For most of the 1800s and early 1900s bitters were advertised with extravagant claims about their ability to cure all manner of diseases including malaria, kidney stones, rheumatism and even impotency.  With the coming of the Pure Food and Drug Act in 1906 most purveyors toned down their advertising to dealing with problems of digestion and defecation.   

In order to spark interest, however, bitters manufacturers frequently resorted to advertising with trade cards depicting images meant to titillate the viewers.  Among the leading purveyors was Lash’s Bitters, a company founded in Cincinnati that later moved to San Francisco.  It specialized in “hold to the light” cards in which a fully dressed woman when lighted from behind is shown in underclothing.  One is shown here.

Lash also could go farther in its saucy images.  Shown above is a tableau in which the five senses are cited.  It shows a young woman who is seeing a figure in the distance, is hearing his approach at the door, smelling the bouquet he has brought, each feeling the warmth of their embrace, and finally tasting — what? It takes little imagination to understand what is going on.

Only rarely did the bitters makers resort to nudity but Lash’s provided the public with an example that was clothed in a medical context.  A doctor is examining a very attractive female patient who, according to the caption, has “heart trouble.”  She has pulled up her night gown so that the attending physician can listen.  Although the stethoscope was invented in 1816 and was standard equipment for U.S. physicians in 1900, this doctor has decided that an ear pressed to a breast gives a better diagnosis — or something.

George M. Pond was the manager of Lash’s branch in Chicago.  Having mastered the art of selling bitters, he struck out on his own, establishing a company he called the Ponds Bitters Company located at 149-153 Fulton Street, Chicago.  For some 15 years, employing many of the merchandising ploys he learned at Lash’s, he thrived.  Those included risqué advertising, with several examples shown here.  The first, Pond's “Stopped for a Puncture," with an outrageous double meaning, is my favorite.

The ad “Maud with her little bear behind,” shown front and back, was a somewhat bizarre take on an old knee-slapper anecdote.   Shown below left is a Ponds card titled “Taking in the Sights”  and the card right bears a caption indicating that the man on the phone is giving an excuse to his wife about being late for dinner

In June 1916, the city prosecutor of Chicago filed suit against Pond’s Bitters Company,   A test of the product by the health commissioner had found that Pond’s Bitters were more than 20 percent alcohol and required the company to obtain a license for selling spiritous liquor.  The suit sought $200 in damages from Pond’s which likely was instantly coughed up since the amount  was a small price to pay for immense profits being reaped from the bitters.

Many distillers and whiskey wholesalers featured a line of bitters — for good reason.  As “medicine” they did not fall under the liquor revenue laws and escaped significant taxation.  Second, bitters could be sold in dry states, counties and communities where whiskey was banned.  Among those taking advantage of these opportunities was Alexander Bauer, a Chicago liquor wholesaler, with a reputation for chicanery, as well as the ribald.  Look closely at this Pepsin Kola and Celery Bitters ad and the story becomes clear.

Carmeliter Bitters and its “come hither” lady bearing an “elixir of life,” poses something of a mystery regarding its origins.  The several variants of the bottle are embossed with different names, including Frank R. Leonori & Co. and Burhenne & Dorn.  Leonori was a New York City liquor dealer located at 82 Wall Street.  Burhenne & Dorn was a liquor house in Brooklyn at 349 Hamburg Avenue.  This nostrum was advertised to be for “all kidney & liver complaints.”

Union Bitters advertised that it would be found “grateful and comforting” where manhood needed to be restored or where “men have lost their self-respect.”  The Union Bitters recipe is recorded containing gentian, peruvian bark, roman chamomile, quassia bark, bitter orange peel and most important, 50% alcohol.  As if those ingredients were not enough to strike an erotic spark, Union Bitters provided a “mechanical” trade card which initially purports to show a peeping gent seeing a woman’s bare bottom.  Opening the card, it is revealed as the hind end of a pig.

The ten examples of the risqué advertising employed by bitters dealers demonstrate the range of images chosen to intrigue and sell a customer.  The product might be bitter, but never dull.

Posted by Jack Sullivan at 10:08 AM

Labels: A. Bauer & Co., Burhenne & Dorn, Carmeliter Bitters, Dr. Roback’s Stomach Bitters, Frank R. Leonori & Co., Lash’s Bitters, Pond’s Bitters, Union Bitters

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