James Anderson, Washington's Plantation Manager

Foreword:  Having featured George Washington as a “whiskey man”, in March, I was reminded of James Anderson, the Scottish overseer who talked the Founding Father into making whiskey at Mount Vernon.  That, in turn, led me to a short biography of Anderson by Esther White, an archeologist I met some years ago when she was supervising the “big dig” to unearth Washington’s distillery.  She graciously has allowed me to reprint her article here as a post.  Dr. White’s resume is below.

We talk so much about George Washington's distillery that we sometimes forget the idea for the operation came from James Anderson, his plantation manager. Anderson began duties at Mount Vernon on January 1, 1797, and he immediately thought the plantation--with the abundance of grain grown--would be a superb spot for a distillery. 

With Washington's consent, Anderson began distilling that February. He was so successful that Washington agreed to expand the distillery into the stone building we were uncovering. As we excavated this building, revealing the series of drains and other features, I often found myself thinking about James Anderson and his role in the distillery.

Washington was clear that the distillery was Mr. Anderson's idea: "Mr. Anderson has engaged me in a distillery (sic), on a small scale, and is very desirous of encreasing (sic) it: assuring me from his own experience in this country, and in Europe..." (George Washington to John Fitzgerald, June 12, 1797).  This letter informs us that Anderson was an experienced distiller. Anderson provided biographical information in two letters written to Washington on August 28 and September 11, 1796, while "interviewing" for the plantation manager position. (Unless otherwise stated, the quotes below are from the September 11 letter.)

Inverkeithing Scotland

Anderson was born in 1745 and grew up on his father's farm, 40 miles north of Edinburgh, near the village of Inverkeithing, Scotland. At the age of 21, he began an apprenticeship "upon the English border...with a Gentleman, Famous in Farming," and at the end of the second year began to manage the estate of this gentleman's uncle. Anderson held this post for three more years, then for the next 19 years "farmed on my own account, 18 of which I was also largely in the Grain line, And had several manufacturing Mills. But by the failure of a Sett (sic) of Distillers in 1788 I nearly lost all."

In February 1774, during the period of farming on his own, he married Helen Gordon, a native of Inverkeithing. They had seven children--John (1776), Elizabeth (1777), Jean (1779), Helen (1781), James (1783), Alexander (1785), and Margaret (1787). The Andersons left Scotland, landing in Norfolk, Virginia, in late 1790 or early 1791. 

The family initially rented a farm near Mount Vernon, and Anderson worked as a manager for a smaller plantation. They moved south near Fredericksburg, Virginia, in 1795 to manage Salvington, the Selden family plantation. Anderson described Salvington as 1,700 acres with 25 slaves and a distillery "which I also conduct." This seems to have been his first opportunity to run a distillery. In Scotland, it seems he grew and processed grain for large distilleries.

Little is known about Salvington's distillery. At this time in Virginia, distilleries generally had two or three stills and were about 1,000 square feet in size. Mount Vernon's distillery had five stills and was more than 2,000 square feet, making it considerably larger. In fact, the distillery that Anderson convinced Washington to build was one of the largest distilleries of the time. Perhaps Anderson used larger distilleries in Scotland as a model for the Mount Vernon operation.

Anderson and Washington held each other in high esteem, yet they maintained a prickly working relationship. Washington paid Anderson his highest compliment on June 11, 1798, when he wrote "I believe you are a man of strict integrity; sobriety; industry & zeal." However, Washington also thought Anderson promised too freely and failed to complete tasks as quickly as he wanted. Probably because of this tension in their working relationship, Anderson thought about working for a neighboring planter in the spring of 1798. 

Washington and Anderson patched up their differences, and 

White House Plantation

Anderson continued to work at Mount Vernon until after Martha Washington's death in 1802. In late 1803 or early 1804, the Andersons moved south to manage White House Plantation for George Washington Parke Custis, Martha's grandson. James died on March 12, 1807, Helen on November 30, 1809. They are buried near the White House Plantation. 

Note:  Trained as an historical archaeologist, Esther White is a founding director of History Revealed, Inc., a history nonprofit formed to explore the intersection of objects, landscapes and text with people and places through time.  Prior to this start-up, she spent over two decades excavating at George Washington’s Mount Vernon and directing the excavation and historical research for the reconstruction of his distillery and gristmill that opened in 2007.  Her interests range from public interpretation of history and archaeology at historic sites, museum collections, and material culture studies.  Dr. White is the author of articles on diverse subjects, including early American whiskey distilling.  She holds a B.A. from the University of North Carolina, a M.A. from the College of William and Mary, and a Ph.D. from the University of Leicester, and lives in Alexandria, Virginia.  

Down at the Still with George Washington

         

Note:  By my count this is the 500th post for my blog on pre-Prohibition whiskey men.   For this “historic” occasion, I have decided to devote the vignette to a truly historic figure, George Washington.  Living not far from Mount Vernon, I was privileged to write a number of articles as Washington’s distillery was being reconstructed there under the guidance of staff archeologists.  Those articles largely were about the distillery; this vignette is on the distillery owner, a pioneering American whiskey man.

After George Washington’s death a myth was spread by Temperance forces that our first President drank nothing stronger than tea.   Nonsense!   Even as a teenager the future President had recorded with evident satisfaction that there had been “wine and rum punch in plenty”  at a dinner prepared for him and companions.  During the Revolution Washington considered liquor “essential to the health of the men.”    Now the myth has been exploded entirely.  Washington,  it turns out,  was one of the earliest and most successful distillers in the newly fledged America.

Washington was a farmer at heart.  Upon returning to Mount Vernon after his presidency, he threw himself wholeheartedly into the agricultural activities of the plantation, including growing corn and rye wheat.  At the urging of his farm managers, James Anderson,  a Scotsman with experience making whiskey both in his homeland and Virginia, Washington began commercial distilling in 1797.  Anderson had advised George that Mount Vernon’s crops, combined with his large gristmill and abundant water supply, would yield a profitable venture.  Always looking for ways to make the farm pay off, Washington agreed.

As a result, in February 1797 the cooperage at Washington’s grist mill, 2.7 miles from the plantation house, was converted to distilling and two stills bought and put into operation.  Success came quickly and Anderson was able to convince Washington to increase the number of stills.  That fall, construction began on a building large enough to hold five stills.  The foundation was laid from large rocks brought from the Falls of the Potomac where Washington was trying to build a canal.  The walls were of sandstone quarried right on the plantation itself.  Washington also invested heavily in the interior.  He bought five large copper kettles, 50 mash tubs, five work tubes and a boiler.

The enlarged distillery was up and running by the spring of 1798.  The facility was managed by Anderson’s son, John, aided by six black slaves.   While not the first distillery in America, nor the largest, Washington’s 75-by-30 foot facility was among the largest of its kind in 18th Century America.  An artist’s concept of the original complex is shown above with the distillery on the right and grist mill on the left. Between 1798 and 1799,  Washington produced 11,000 gallons of whiskey,  valued in that day at more than $7,000 (equivalent today to several hundred thousand dollars).  The  distillery also made brandy using locally grown apples, peaches and persimmons.

In October 1799, a delighted Washington wrote his nephew:  “Two hundred gallons of Whiskey will be ready this day for your call, and the sooner it is taken the better, as the demand for this article (in these parts) is brisk….”  About the same time he was writing to friends to describe a steady market for his liquor in nearby Alexandria, Virginia.  A merchant there named Gilpin there would buy all Washington could provide of this un-aged whiskey — equivalent today to moonshine or “white lightening.”  Shown below is a reproduction of the desk that George might have used to calculate his earnings.

Some liquor clearly was kept for home use.  Marquis de Lafayette, on a visit to Mount Vernon from Paris,  wrote of the “swift authority” of the plantation’s spirits.   Achille Murat,  a Frenchman who married Washington’s great-grand niece,  remarked after a taste:  “Whiskey is the best part of the American government.”

A determined agriculturalist, willing to do hands on experimentation in the pursuit of profit, Washington himself became versed in the process, writing in 1798 that: “Rye chiefly, and Indian Corn in a certain proportion, compose the materials from which the Whiskey is made….”  Never one to waste anything, he stored the spent mash and fed it to more than 150 hogs and cattle kept on the site.

The success of Washington’s distillery was short-lived.    In 1799 the first President died suddenly, the facility was closed  and within a decade the building had fallen into disrepair.  His heirs removed many of the stones from the structure for other building projects on the plantation.  In time the distillery site disappeared, although drawings of it survived.

For a long time it was believed that one of the original stills from the Washington distillery resided in the Smithsonian Institution.    The copper kettle had been confiscated in 1939 from a moonshine operation, allegedly run by a Virginia family descended from Washington’s servants.  Later it was put it on display at Mount Vernon.  While almost certainly not one of Washington’s, the still dates from 1787 and England,  and is similar to the ones George purchased.   It became the model for the five stills installed in the restored distillery.

Today the American public knows a great deal more about the Father of the Country as a whiskey-maker.  Using a multi-million grant from the Distilled Spirits Council of the United States (DICUS), the distillery as conceived and operated by the Washington was recreated on the original site and opened to the public in 2005.  

I recommend a visit.  The second floor contains a museum where a number of artifacts can be found, including my gift of matches from a “Mount Vernon whiskey” that had nothing to do with Washington’s liquor.  Once a year DISCUS actually distills on premises and the bottled whiskey is sold to raise funds for Washington’s home at Mount Vernon.

Afterword:  More than a year ago when the number of whiskey men profiled reached 400 and I determined to go to 500, the question was left open about what would happen when that mark was reached.  In ensuing months, I have found so many intriguing stories of pre-prohibition distillers, liquor dealers and saloonkeepers that it was an easy decision. I will go for 600.