W. C. Patterson: A Fortune Lost in Whiskey Flames

William Chamberlain Patterson for decades seemed to live a charmed life.  Brought to Philadelphia as a boy, he became prominent in military, business and political circles there, including presidency of the Pennsylvania Railroad, “amassing a handsome fortune,” according to an obituary.   Patterson’s life changed drastically, however, when he involved himself in the pre-Prohibition whiskey industry and a disastrous fire brought him to the brink of ruin.

Patterson neither made nor sold liquor.  His role was in providing storage for whiskey as it aged from Pennsylvania distilleries that entrusted their product to him for safe and sanitary keeping.  To that end, on Front Street, above Lombard, he had erected a structure known as Patterson’s bonded warehouse.   It was composed of eight buildings, all but one seven stories high and 220 by 135 feet.   The walls of each structure were 18 inches thick and solid from the cellar foundations to the roof.  The buildings were connected by stout iron doors, kept closed at all times.  

Said one observer:  “Each was supposed to be completely fireproof, and built without connection with each other, and therefore supposed to be perfectly safe for destruction by fire.”  During the Civil War the complex had held supplies of sugar, molasses and cotton, but afterward “vast amounts of whiskey” had been placed there by both the U.S. Government and some eleven individual distillers, among them some of Pennsylvania’s best known whiskey-manufacturers, including companies operated under the names of Hannis, Gibson and Young.

On the night of August 4, 1869, one wall of a building facing Lombard Street collapsed, reputedly because of excessive weight from 25,000 liquor barrels on the floors.  Stored whiskey went down with the ruins and in a few moments a violent explosion occurred, scattering timbers, bricks and flames.  Firemen appeared to have isolated the damage and it was thought other sections of the warehouse could be saved.  Then a second building exploded in fire and soon the entire complex was engulfed.  The front page of the Harpers Weekly of August 21, shown above, told the story.

Burning whiskey ran down the gutters and into the sewers, exploding and breaking open a section, but not impeding the flow through a sewer leading to a Philadelphia wharf, setting it ablaze.  The flames threatened a ship at the pier, but it was towed to safety.  Philadelphia folklore says that citizens could be seen scooping flaming whiskey from the gutters with every conceivable container — a story that is unconfirmed.  A photo above from the Heaven Hill Distillery fire in 1996 shows what a river of burning whiskey looks like.   The ruins of the huge warehouse  became a favorite of photographers, some of whom created stereopticon view for 3-D effects.  

Accounted one of the worst conflagrations in Philadelphia history, no direct casualties were laid to the disaster.  The largest loser among those with whiskey stored there was H.C. Hannis & Co.  

Founded by Henry Hannis in 1863, this distillery had experienced phenomenal growth almost from the outset. Establishing his headquarters in Philadelphia, Hannis bought the Mount Vernon Distillery in Baltimore, shown here, and changed the name to his own.  Although his Baltimore facility had four warehouses for aging whiskey, they proved inadequate to his needs, leading him to store 8,000 barrels in Patterson’s warehouse, almost one-third of the total lost.  Some of his prime whiskey was estimated to be worth $15 a gallon. [See my post on Hannis, Feb. 2, 2012].

Now all eyes turned to William C. Patterson, a man who up until that time had seemed “golden.”  Born in Tazewell, Clairborn County, Tennessee, in 1820 he had come to Philadelphia as a seven year old boy with his parents.  He was the brother of General Robert Patterson, a man 21 years his senior and already established in the Philadelphia banking community.  William’s career began by working for his brother.

The younger Patterson’s rise in business circles was swift, at the age of 34 elected as a director of the Pennyslvania Railroad and chosen as its president a year later.  The Pattersons also had political clout and William was elected to the Philadelphia City Council, later to the Pennsylvania legislature, and once was an unsuccessful Democratic Party candidate for mayor.

When the Civil War broke out, Robert Patterson, who had been a major general in the Mexican-American War, was called back to service.  Although he inflicted an early defeat on Stonewall Jackson, Robert was blamed for events that contributed to the Union debacle at the first Battle of Bull Run.  He was mustered out of the Army in July 1961.  William, holding the rank of colonel, had accompanied him to the front as his unpaid aide and the two returned to Philadelphia to resume their business careers, both amassing fortunes.

William continued to aid the war effort by rendering services to the troops.  From one account:  “Day after day he forwarded to the hospitals and to the refreshment saloon supplies for the passing troops or delicacies for the sick and wounded, and many of the convalescent owed their returning strength largely to drives taken in the carriage he generously placed at their disposal.”  In these efforts he was assisted by his wife, Caroline Ellmaker Patterson.

As a result of the fire Patterson faced the greatest challenge of his life.  The loss of his warehouse and its contents was placed at $5,000,000 — more than 20 times that in today’s dollar.  Of that amount only $2,299,000 of the lost whiskey was covered by insurance.  No fewer than 54 insurers were involved, including five in England, all of them to be dealt with individually.  Typically insurers were slow to act, difficult to deal with, and often suspicious that whiskey-related fires had been set.  Patterson’s burned out buildings also were covered by multiple insurers.

The bottom line for Patterson was the personal responsibility to make good all uncovered losses.  The cost is said to have swept away most the wealth he had amassed earlier.  Said his obituary in the Philadelphia Inquirer: “From this blow his fortunes never entirely recovered, but as he had borne prosperity without being spoiled by it, so he met adversity with a calm front and an equal mind.”  

Patterson’s reputation as a businessman remained unaffected by the fire.  Opined his obituary:  “His business talents and his lofty integrity of character, illustrated by the grace of courtly manners and by natural kindness of heart, secured and retained the esteem of his old associates in mercantile and railroad circles…”  When a new Philadelphia bank, the Union Trust Company, was chartered in the early 1880s, Patterson was elected its president.  

He held that post for only a few months, however, before a fall on the ice fractured a leg.  The break was a serious one requiring a heavy cast and absolute bed rest.  The result, according to the medical terminology of the day was “ossification of the arteries.”  Patterson died on the morning of June 21, 1883, at the home of a son, William C. Patterson Jr. at the age of 70.  He was buried in Philadelphia’s Laurel Hill Cemetery where many of the city’s whiskey men are interred.  Shown here is his unusual monument, one shared with his brother, General Robert.

Despite all the precautions that Patterson and his architect had made to fireproof the whiskey warehouse, they had not calculated correctly the weight-bearing capacity of the structure.  Anxious to make sure that the interior space was fully occupied, Patterson had allowed the floors to become overloaded with heavy barrels of whiskey, leading to the second largest fire in Philadelphia history up to that time.  Thus, because of a single fatal error, the wealth Patterson’s ample talents had earned him over many years of effort virtually were wiped out overnight — a fortune lost in flaming whiskey.

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.