Tom Angle and the Two Pound Diamond

        

When he was a boy, Thomas Mayes Angle wrote in 1926, he was always looking for diamonds in the sand of the branches and creeks of Caswell County, North Carolina. He once found a crystal rock of about two pounds. “I felt sure for a long time," Angle said, "that my fortune was made. I had found the long looked for diamond and I never will forget how badly I felt when the discovery was made that it was only quartz.”  As a grown man, Angle may have thought by operating distilleries he could discover the equivalent of that two pound diamond and make his fortune.  Again he was mistaken —  and paid a price.

Angle was born in June 1863 in Iredell County, North Carolina, the son of Solomon and Eleanor (Durham) Angle.  His father, a Confederate war veteran, was a dentist and claimed the title “Doctor,” even to his gravestone.  There may be some doubt as to his credentials since North Carolina had no dental college until 1950 and Virginia’s first such dates to 1893 when Sol, as he was known, was 70 years old.

Tom received his education in local schools and apparently early on gravitated to farming, likely having a small distillery on the property.  In March 1899 he married Eva Margaret Staton, a local woman who was six years younger.  In quick succession, the couple would have two boys, Montrose, born in 1900 and Solomon, 1901.  A third son, Thomas S., arrived in 1907.

In the early 1900s Jack Miles, the aging owner of a distillery in Anderson Township, Caswell County, North Carolina, hearing of Angle’s abilities as a distiller, offered him the job of managing his plant.  Likely feeling the need for increased income as family man, Angle agreed, moving his wife and children 120 miles west to Milton, a town adjacent to the Virginia border.  There  Angle established himself as a distiller and liquor dealer.

As a demonstration of his desire to put down roots, he bought a handsome home near Milton, one formerly owned by Dr. W. L. Stamps who called it Glenburnie. Set among towering trees and surrounded by farmland the house featured large windows, a wide entry way and spacious front porch.  It is pictured here as it looked in the early 1900s.  

As one biographer blandly put it:  “It appears that the distillery business eventually caused legal difficulties for Thomas Mayes Angle.”  Indeed.  In a case the newspapers called “very important,” Angle and three members of the well known North Carolina Sprinkle distilling family  [see my post of April 22, 2014] were charged with defrauding the government of $100,000 in whiskey taxes and hauled into Federal Court in Greensboro.  Another defendant already had been convicted.

The outcome of the trial has not been recorded.  It would not be a surprise to learn that it ended in a hung jury.  According to a press account, after an initial jury had been selected Angle’s attorney “asked all who had formed or expressed an opinion that the defendants were guilty to retire.”  Nine jurors immediately got up and left.  My guess is that they did so to escape ruling on the case out of sympathy for the defendants.  Local juries often tended to be partial to the accused, whom they may have known personally.

Even if he did not face punishment, Angle likely was out of work as the law allowed Federal authorities to confiscate the Milton distillery and shut it down.  Before long, however, another opportunity arose only a dozen miles away across the Virginia line in the city of Danville, shown here. 

Adjacent to a grist mill owned by a Captain J. Hutch Pigg, was a whiskey-making facility known as the Dry Fork Distillery.  In the photo above, the building, made of corregated steel, can be seen tucked a corner of the wooden mill.  The structure shown below also is said to have been part of the complex.  Despite his earlier problems with federal authorities Angle was hired as distillery manager.

The Dry Fork Distillery was in an excellent position to become prosperous and make him rich.  As one observer noted about Danville: “ Distilleries have sprung up like mushrooms around this city since the recent temperance laws were adopted in North Carolina.  Being only three miles from the North Carolina border line, Danville is an ideal shipping point to Greensboro, Durham, Charlotte and other ‘dry’ towns.”  The production capacity of the Dry Point Distillery was about 1,200 barrels annually, amounting to between 50,000 and 60,000 gallons.  Tom Angle could anticipated the fortune he had dreamed of as a boy.

Despite his earlier brush with the law the North Carolinian apparently had not yet learned his lesson.  When two years of his management resulted in unusually significant growth in profitability, Federal authorities suspected that the Dry Fork Distillery was producing and shipping out large quantities of whiskey daily in excess of the amount on which tax was being paid.  

At least a dozen revenue officers were stationed in and around Danville in an effort to gather evidence of fraud.  Contacted by a Washington Post reporter, Angle denied any wrong-doing but admitted that agents had been shadowing his and other locations for some time.  “‘Last Saturday night, six officers slept in the woods near here and in the morning following inspected the still,” he told the reporter.

The Dry Fork Distillery subsequently was raided and shut down by authorities. Angle was ordered to post a bond of $4,000 ($88,000 in today’s dollar) in order to reopen if everything was found in order.  An investigative report to the Commissioner of Internal Revenue found, however, that Angle’s plant had been defrauding the government out of internal revenue taxes by means of double runs and other methods, thereby evading paying the excise of $1.10 on every gallon of spirits produced.  The report further claimed that fraudulent operations had been going on for about two years.  If the estimates provided by the investigating officers were correct, for nearly every gallon on which the tax had been paid another gallon had been surreptitiously manufactured.

At that point the Dry Fork Distillery was liable of being forfeited and sold by authorities, along with sixty barrels of whiskey — nearly 3,000 gallons — taken in the raid.  The total value was estimated at $9,400 (almost $207,000 today).  A representative of the company, likely Captain Pigg, approached the revenue officers and offered to settle the matter by paying a $7,000 penalty.  The offer was rejected, the plant and liquor ordered to be sold, and Angle and others involved were prosecuted criminally. 

As was common in those cases the matter dragged on for years.  Although the seizure had occurred early in 1905, not until 1908 did a Federal grand jury return its indictments against the officers and directors of the company.  The Wine and Spirits Journal noted:  “The main prosecution will be made against T. M. Angle who was manager of the distillery.”  The criminal trial did not occur until April, 1910, when Angle was found guilty on five counts.  Subsequent civil suits for payment of unpaid liquor taxes against him were not decided until the following November.

Whether or not Angle ever served time or how much is unclear.  He continued to live with his family at Glenburnie and was recorded in both the 1910 and 1920 census occupied in agriculture.  A local newspaper obituary called him “a successful farmer and throughout his active life displayed a large interest in community affairs, being for many years a political leader.”  My efforts have been unavailing in finding corroborating evidence of Angle’s community service or political endeavors.

A 1926 notice advertised the sale of two T. M. Angle farms outside Milton, one of 210 acres said to be excellent for tobacco growing or home sites and a second of 106 acres located on low grounds along the Dan River.  A band concert and raffle of $100 were offered as a lure to potential buyers.  Three years later Tom Angle died, the cause given as diabetes and chronic hepatitis exacerbated by the flu.  He was survived by his widow, Eva, and three sons.  After a funeral service in his home, he was buried in Cedars Cemetery at Milton.

After Angle’s death Eva continued to live at Glenburnie with her youngest son, Thomas.  She was away in Greensboro on June 30, 1932, when about 1 a.m. the pilot of a small mail plane passing over the home noticed flames and by flying low over the area and making maximum noise alerted Thomas who was asleep in the house.  

He and neighbors were able save some furniture but the house was destroyed.  A photo of the burned out Glenburnie indicates the complete ruin it became from a fire believed to have originated in a frame kitchen at the rear.  It was reported that there was no insurance on the structure or its contents.  Not only did Tom Angle never find his two pound diamond, now his gem of a home, Glenburnie, was gone.

Matt Hinkel: Cleveland’s Liquor Dealer Sportsman

   

The rise of Mathias J. “Matt” Hinkel, shown here, from twelve-year-old office boy in Cleveland to nationally known millionaire sportsman, boxing promoter and prize fight referee was a phenomenon founded on the sale of alcohol.  From 1892 to 1919, Hinkel’s prosperous wholesale trade in wines and “jobber of fine whiskey” made possible his forays into boxing, baseball, and horse racing as well as financing the establishment of other Cleveland businesses.  

Born in the Ohio city in 1867, Hinkel was the son of Catherine (Sauer) and Jacob Hinkel, both immigrants from Hesse Darmstadt, Germany.  Although Jacob’s occupation in the 1880 census was given as “merchant,” he may not have been a  successful one.  Matt was forced to quit school at 12 years old and go to work as an office boy for Edwards, Townsend & Company, a major Cleveland wholesale grocery and liquor emporium.  According to a biographer, “…By close attention to business and faithfulness and diligence [Hinkel] rose to the position of manager of their liquor department.”  Because Edwards, Townsend relied heavily on liquor sales, Hinkel became a key company executive while still in his teens.

After toiling for the grocery chain for more than a decade, Hinkel opened his own liquor house at 461 Pearl Avenue in 1892.  This move may have been triggered by his 1889 marriage to Minerva Marie, “Minnie” Willschlager (1870-1927). The couple would produce three children, two girls and a boy.  With a growing family Matt likely felt the need for more income. 

Under Hinkel’s adept managerial hand, his liquor business grew and flourished.  The need for more space apparently prompted a move to 1778 25th Street in 1906 and subsequently and finally in 1909 to 814-820 Prospect Avenue SE.  It is difficult to assess Hinkel’s marketing strategies.  He apparently did not advertise widely and artifacts from his trade are few.  I have been able only to locate a metal jug engraved “Hinkel’s Pure Rye,” the artifact that first put me onto the track of this whiskey man’s story.  The jug likely was meant for use on a bar where it would have held water or tea for “cutting” whiskey.

When and how Hinkel honed his passion for sports is unclear.  His first foray seems to have been into baseball.  In 1912, he sponsored an amateur team known as Matt Hinkel’s Champions.  When offered a chance to have a professional franchise in the newly formed Columbia League, he jumped at it, hiring a manager and negotiating a contract with the owner of Luna Park on the outskirts of Cleveland for the erection of a 20,000 seat baseball stadium.  When the new league imploded without a single game being played, Hinkel must have been devastated, but retained his interest in baseball, befriending the great Ty Cobb and becoming his hunting partner. 

Hinkel would make his mark in fisticuffs, gaining recognition as both an impresario of boxing matches and a referee.  His breakout event was arranging a 15-round featherweight championship bout on Labor Day 1916 at Cedar Point, Ohio, shown below.  The match pitted Johnny Kilbane, left, the title-holder and Cleveland native, and George Chaney of  Baltimore, called “The Knockout King of Fistiana.”  The Plain Dealer opined:  “Twenty thousand American dollars must pass through the gates of Cedar Point…before…[the bout] is a financial success.”  The crowds came and watched their Local Hero dispatch Chaney in three rounds.  Much of the credit — and profits — went to Hinkel.

Cedar Point Pavilion

Soon Hinkel was being compared to the famous New York fight promoter, Tex Rickard.  His reputation as a referee also was growing.  In September 1917, he promoted a heavyweight battle in Canton, Ohio, between two heavyweight contenders, Fred Fulton, known as the “Pugnacious Plasterer,” and Carl Morris, “The Oklahoma White Hope.”  Despite having thousands of dollars to lose, Hinkel stopped the fight in the third round after Morris, a brawler, repeatedly hit Fulton with low blows and refused to stop.  Morris was disqualified and Fulton declared the winner.

A Philadelphia sports writer covering the match marveled at Hinkel’s courage:  “When he disqualified Morris he risked his reputation and got away with it.  The decision was greeted with cheers and Matt was called back to the ring for a further ovation.  He is stronger than ever with the boxing fans, for he proved yesterday that he not only is a capable, but fearless referee.  He is the kind of man we need in Philadelphia.” 

A newspaper in Edmonton Canada identified him as Cleveland’s “millionaire boxing referee.”  A Duluth, Minnesota, daily hailed him as “one of the best ring arbiters in the country.”  Sportswriters around the country regarded him as a guru on the fight game and hung on his words.  Newspapers from El Paso to Milwaukee reported a speech Hinkel gave in July 1917 in which he declared that all championship fights should be scheduled for twenty rounds and titleholders should not participate in shorter prize fights even though they might be lucrative.

Shown above is Hinkel refereeing perhaps the most famous bout of his ring career.  Held at the Olympic Arena in Brooklyn, Ohio, the 1924 fight drew national attention as Harry Greb (left), the world’s middleweight champion, fought Gene Tunney, the American light-heavyweight champion.  Two years earlier Greb had given Tunney, later world heavyweight champion, the only defeat of his career. The rematch went ten rounds, called a “see-saw” affair, and the judges declared it a no-decision.  Hinkel told the press that if he had been permitted to vote he would have declared the contest a draw.

Despite the rigors of running his liquor business and promoting the fight game, Hinkel had the energy to manage other Cleveland enterprises.  He was president and treasurer of the Art Electrotype Foundry Company, an outfit that made printing plates.  He also was president and treasurer of the Smith Form-a-Truck Company, an early entry into the burgeoning automotive field, and was vice president of the Arts Photo Paper Company.  To these activities must be added his work as a civic activist and participation in the Elks, Moose and Cleveland’s Tuxedo Club.

Matt Hinkel

With the coming of statewide prohibition, Hinkel was forced to shut down his liquor house in 1919 after 27 years in business.  By this time he was 52 years old and could rely on his other enterprises for activity and revenue.   Moreover, the ensuing years would be among his most active in the fight game.  Yet Matt seemed to sense that National Prohibition would end before long and kept one hand in the liquor trade.

George Remus

That pitted the Cleveland fight promoter against one of America’s most dangerous bootleggers, George Remus.  Shown here, Remus, a lawyer, saw that his criminal clients were becoming wealthy very quickly through the illegal production and distribution of alcoholic beverages.  Remus read the fine print in the Volstead Act and found a loophole that allowed him to buy distilleries to produce and sell bonded liquor for medicinal purposes, under government license. His employees, eventually numbering 3,000, then would hijack his own liquor so that he could sell it illegally. The scheme realized $40 million in less than three years.  When eventually caught and sentenced to prison in 1925, Remus’ estranged wife, Imogene, took the opportunity to sell off his whiskey.

Hinkel purchased most of the Remus stash, including 3,000 barrels of whiskey from the Pogue Distillery in Maysville, Kentucky.  The bootlegger’s attempt to “rescue” that whiskey before he went to jail had been thwarted by a judge’s order, likely initiated by the Clevelander.  The Pogue whiskey became Hinkel’s.  Rather than menacing Matt, Remus took his revenge on Imogene.  Released from jail, he shot her down on a Cincinnati street and beat a murder rap by pleading insanity.

My guess is that Hinkel was able to continue selling this whiskey through the authorized “medicinal” channels during the remainder of the 1920s and into the 1930s.  In the mid-1930s as National Prohibition was being rescinded, Hinkel would have found a strong demand for any remaining stocks.  With Repeal, however, he did not revive his Cleveland liquor house, possibly because of declining health. 

On September 19, 1936, Hinkel, age 69, suffered a heart attack and died. He was survived by his second wife, Bessie (Hayes) Hinkel and his three children. Following a funeral in his home, he was interred in the Lake Park Cemetery, Rocky River, Ohio.  His gravestone is shown here.

From a 12-year-old office boy, Matt Hinkel had risen to the ranks of Cleveland millionaires by dint of his intelligence, hard work, and chosen occupation selling liquor.  Perhaps more important, he had helped put his home town and Northeastern Ohio into the front ranks of America’s sports by his promotion of nationally noted boxing matches.

Note:  This vignette has been drawn from a wide range of sources.  Two principal ones were brief biographies in “Men of Ohio”  issued in 1914 by the Cleveland Leader and Cleveland News newspapers and “A History of Cleveland and Its Environs,” authored by Elroy McKendree Avery and issued in 1918 by Lewis Publishing Co.  Subsequent to this posting, in August 2022 the Hinkel shot glass shown here came to light and has been added.

Addendum:  Noting my comment above about my problems finding whiskey artifacts from Matt Hinkel, Jack Past of Phoenix, Arizona, was kind enough to send along the saloon sign below.  It was purchased some time ago by his now diseased father, Dr. Si Past of Dayton, Ohio, a collector.  I had never before seen it.  The sign is a marvel and my great thanks to Atty. Past for allowing me to replicate it below.

James Gorman: Selling Whiskey with "Blarney"

When saloonkeeper and whiskey dealer James Gorman looked out from his Lynchburg, Virginia, home to the Southern states and localities that had banned the production and sale of alcohol, he saw a vast thirsty audience and an open road to supply it.  But so had many others.  This son of Irish immigrants, however, had inherited a gift of “blarney,” a particularly beneficial quality in the liquor trade.  Beyond his competition Gorman had the ability to shape the written word to amuse or dazzle and to convince readers that his whiskeys were the best their money could buy.  In an 18-page catalogue for his mail order trade, the dealer sounded multiple themes: 

Page 3: We have Liquors for CORN SHUCKING and ICE CUTTING, as well as for the Wedding, and some for the baby too.”

Page 5:  Gorman’s Private Stock….This Whiskey is put up on my own formula, and is considered by judges and experts to be the best blended whiskey on the market today.

Page 6:  “The World Cannot Beat It….Gorman’s Pure Rye is a brand made from the very best Maryland and Pennsylvania Ryes distilled, always mellow and nice.  The doctors’ best tonic;  good for the sick and doesn’t hurt the well.”

Page 8:  “HONEST DEALINGS….I was born and raised in Old Virginia and the people who know me know that when I say anything I mean it, and can be relied up to the very letter…NO HUMBUGGING AND NO  TWO-FACED BUSINESS in my establishment.”

Page 9: Shown here is an illustrated ad that indicates Gorman’s Private Stock High-Ball Whiskey “makes old men young again.”  Wink, wink.

Therapeutic claims by Gorman for his liquor were standard in the trade.  Whiskey was considered part of the physician’s pharmacopeia and still in general medical use.  The Irish whiskey dealer occasionally went too far.  In the circa 1900 ad below, he claimed that Gorman’s “Piney River Corn” was “The Greatest Kidney Cure on Earth.”

James Gorman’s “no holds barred” attitude was typical of his life.  He was born in Lynchburg, Virginia, in August 1866, the son of Margaret (Moriarity) and Richard Gorman, both immigrants from Ireland.  His father was a worker on the railroad.  The Ancestry record of his siblings indicates two half-brothers born in Ireland, two sisters and a brother who died in infancy, a brother and sister who lived to maturity, and a half-brother who may have been the product of his mother’s remarriage.  Gorman appears to received the standard schooling of that time in Virginia, elementary and some secondary.

Lynchburg city directories first record Gorman’s career path in 1885, when at the age of 19, he was employed as a clerk at Adams Bros. & Paynes, a local company that sold “coal, wood, lumber, lime, cement, baled forage, carriages, wagons & etc.”  About 1890 he moved on and up to the position of the bookkeeper for Bell, Barker & Jennings, a Lynchburg hardware wholesaler.  By 1897 he had struck out on his own as the proprietor of a Martha Washington Candy Works, a national franchise confectionary, a shop likely run out of his home at 1103 12th Street.

In October 1887 Gorman married Elizabeth J. “Lizzie” Magri, the daughter of Frank Magri, a Lynchburg  grocer who had emigrated from Italy and Mary Jane (McCarron) Magri, an Irish immigrant.   James and Lizzie both were 21 years old.  The couple would have ten children over the next eighteen years, two of whom died infancy.  Shown below is a family photo from about 1912.  Many of these youngsters would grow up to distinguished careers.

Family responsibilities provided a powerful incentive for Gorman to increase his income.  He would soon find out, as Dorothy Parker quipped, “Candy is dandy, but liquor is quicker.”   A shot glass with James’ initials on it shown here might suggest he entered the liquor trade as early 1892.  Unfortunately, there is no evidence of that in Lynchburg directories.  Gorman’s first listing as a saloonkeeper occurred in 1900.  One explanation may be that he had purchased an existing liquor business.  In such cases it was common for the new owner to cite the original founding.

Like many saloonkeepers, Gorman understood early on that selling liquor by the case or bottle was more lucrative than serving individual drinks over the bar.  Accompanying his saloon was a wholesale liquor and mail order house. In that capacity he was the distributor in the region for well known national brands of whiskey such as “Old Charter,” “Paul Jones,” “Duffy’s Malt,” “Gibson Rye,” “Sherwood,” and “Old Possum Hollow.” He issued shot glasses advertising several of those brands.

More important, he was marketing his own whiskey.  The 1908 directory listed him as a “rectifier,” that is, someone who was receiving barrels of raw whiskey from distillers in Maryland, Kentucky, Pennsylvania and perhaps elsewhere, mixing them to achieve color, taste and smoothness and then decanting the blends into labeled bottles for sale.  This process required real skill to accomplish successfully and it appears James had mastered it.  Thus were the origins of “Gorman’s Pure Rye,” “Gorman’s Private Stock,” “Gorman’s Piney River Corn Whiskey,” and “Piedmont Corn Whiskey.” The Lynchburg liquor dealer might have been responsible for other brands but since he apparently never trademarked any of his whiskeys, it is impossible to identify them.  Those would have been sold at retail in glass bottles of varying sizes with flasks as the most popular.

Gorman’s whiskeys were of a quality to gain a reputation beyond Virginia and the South.  At least two Northern liquor dealers featured his brands.  One was Guggenheim Brothers, a liquor business that began in Tiffin, Ohio, moving to Cleveland about 1882.  The brothers not only advertised Gorman Rye, they issued a shot glass with the name etched in the glass.  A second liquor dealer was John J. Finn of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.  Finn advertised Old Gorman Rye among his featured brands and issued shot glasses in its name.

Events seemed to be going Gorman’s way until 1909.  After the Civil War Virginia had allowed independent municipalities to enact “local option” dry laws.  Votes on whether or not to allow the sale of alcohol in Lynchburg were put to citizens in referendums in 1886, 1890, and 1898.  Championed by saloonkeepers like Gorman, each time the “wets” won.  In 1909, however, Lynchburg’s prohibitionists were successful in passing an ordinance prohibiting the sale of liquor within the city limits.  Gorman was forced to shut down his bar and liquor sales.

Continuing at his 63 Ninth Street address, Gorman advertised his establishment as selling soft drinks and cigars.  In truth, however, he had another ploy in mind for continuing to serve his local clientele.  He established a branch of James Gorman Company 165 miles west of Lynchburg in Staunton, Virginia, probably employing no more than one or two people.  He would take orders for liquor at his soft drink emporium, transmit them to Staunton where they would be filled and the booze sent by railway express direct to the buyer. 

When local authorities caught wind of this scheme, they were quick to arrest Gorman, charging him with violation of the liquor laws.   On August 6, 1909, he was tried in Lynchburg’s police court.  Attorneys for the local Anti-Saloon League pressed the judge for jail time but Gorman was given only a $50 fine.  His lawyers announced the whiskey man would appeal his conviction to the state Corporation Court.

That was a wise move.  The Virginia Corporation Commission had wet sympathies.  Earlier, when four far western Virginia towns officially banned alcohol sales, levied stiff fines on violators, and by threats of arrest intimidated the Southern Express Co. from delivering mail order alcohol, the Commission declared the ordinances void, ruled that whiskey merchants could sell liquor up to five gallons at a time to those customers, and required the express company to deliver it.  My assumption is that the Commission was similarly favorable to Gorman’s appeal.

Meanwhile for a time Gorman moved his liquor operation to Roanoke, Viriginia, a town that had remained aggressively “wet” while localities all around the state were voting dry.  A glass jug with that designation and the address 16 East Salem avenue is shown here.   The Roanoke directory listing for 1910 indicates that Gorman not only had opened a saloon and was selling whiskey from that location, he was living in Roanoke at 3 Norfolk Avenue SE.  Breaking into a new territory, he was aggressively advertising locally.  Among his ads he was touting his Piedmont Corn Whiskey as having “cured more Consumptives than all Doctors.”  Adversity had not dulled his blarney approach.

Two years after Lynchburg went dry a subsequent vote overturned the local dry  laws. Gorman soon returned there to a new location at 100 Ninth Street  and opened another saloon, shown here.  Now he was free to forget about soft drinks and concentrate on whiskey.  Much of the Deep South was officially dry.  In 1908 Alabama, Georgia and Mississippi all had banned making or selling alcohol.  North Carolina followed a year later and South Carolina’s corrupt state-run liquor system had collapsed.  Federal court decisions established that the Interstate Commerce Clause of the Constitution permitted residents of dry states or localities to purchase alcohol out-of-state by mail order and have it delivered without interference by authorities.

Southern fields were ripe and ready for harvest, Gorman knew. In Lynchburg he was well positioned carry on his trade.  From its Union Station the city was served by a number of rail lines extending into the South, the principal ones being Norfolk & Western and Great Southern.  For the next five years, James Gorman Company knew an era of prosperity.  That ended In 1916 when Virginia voters approved a statewide referendum banning making or selling alcoholic beverages.  Moreover, the U.S. Congress, feeling prohibitionist pressure, had passed the Webb-Kenyon Act banning mail order liquor sales into dry areas.  Gorman was forced to shut down his saloon a second time and abandon his mail order trade.  He was only 50 years old.

Shown here in middle age standing with Lizzie on the porch of his home, Gorman for the ensuing three years was not recorded in city directories pursing any occupation. That changed in 1921 when he emerged as a partner in the Home Insurance Agency in Lynchburg and president of the Mead Toline Coal Company in West Virginia.  Both were common pursuits for whiskey men suddenly forced out of business.  Throughout the early Twentieth Century coal had been in demand. Total output soared, doubling every ten years to a peak of 680 short tons in 1918.  Coal mining was considered a solid investment.  By 1923 Gorman was identified as the president-treasurer of Ingram Branch Mining and Killarney Smokeless Coal, both companies located in West Virginia.  

Gorman’s responsibilities must have required frequent 165 mile trips between Lynchburg and the mining sites.  Even though the journey could be made by automobile, the roads into West Virginia were mud or gravel and not easily traversed.  Rugged travel and other strains might have weakened Gorman’s health.  On February 17, 1924, without warning he was stricken with a massive heart attack and died, only 57 years old. Two days later the Lynchburg whiskey man was buried in Holy Cross Cemetery while his widow and family, including two minor children, grieved at his gravesite.

A tall Celtic cross marks the Gorman plot, towering over James’ marker.  James Gorman’s lasting legacy was in the achievements of his children, whom he empowered to obtain the advanced education he never knew.  Two of his sons became prominent physicians and a third son, a lawyer and judge.  One, or possibly two, daughters were lifelong Sisters of Charity.

Note:  This post on James Gorman of Lynchburg, Virginia, would not have occurred except for a contact from his great-grandson, Dr. James “Jim” Gorman, of Wellesley, Mass.  After seeing my post on the Gorman shot glass from the Guggenheim Bros. (Sept. 7, 2016), he was in touch with me about his whiskey man ancestor and provided some biographical information.  I was immediately interested.  Dr. Gorman subsequently sent me further material and many of the photos used throughout the vignette.  His help was essential and most appreciated.  He currently is assembling information on the ancestors and descendants of James Gorman and Elizabeth Magri.  If you can provide, or would like to obtain, information on them, he can be reached at jgorman999@gmail.com." The photo of James and Lizzie Gorman on their porch is through the courtesy of the Lynchburg Museum System.

Whiskey Men as Judges

Foreword:  Although it was not a common occupation for a distiller, liquor dealer, saloon keeper or bartender, several whiskey men spent time “on the bench” dispensing, one presumes, justice to the people of their town or county.  Here are the stories of three individuals who found themselves in the judging game, each with a distinct story of how he ascended to the job.

William Harrison McBrayer, called Judge McBrayer for much of his life, is credited with being among the handful of Kentucky distillers who raised the quality and image of the state’s whiskey to international renown. One contemporary account says of his Cedar Creek brand: “It was the whiskey that made the crowned heads of Europe turn from Scotch to bourbon.”

McBrayer was born in Anderson County, Kentucky, in 1821, one of 11 children from a pioneer family. His grandfather had been early settler in the Bluegrass State. His father, a farmer and politician, probably ran a small still on his land. Educated in Anderson County schools, McBrayer early showed a talent for business.  There is no evidence, however, as a youth he studied the law other than inheriting his father’s taste for politics.

When Kentucky became a state the thirty-year-old McBrayer was quick to see an opportunity, ran for Anderson County judge, was elected, and served four years, earning a title he carried with him the rest of his life.  The quality of his service on the bench has gone largely unrecorded but clearly was good enough that when the now Judge McBrayer ran for the Kentucky State Senate, he was elected, serving a four year term.

Apparently tiring of politics, McBrayer began to give serious attention to a small distillery he had operated on Cedar Creek. He greatly expanded the facility, constructing a new frame building to hold the still, three ironclad warehouses with metal roofs and a number of outbuildings. The photograph above shows the site.  With this expansion McBrayer concentrated on making a high quality whiskey, he called Cedar Brook, and marketed it widely. Its success was swift, aided by winning first prize and a gold medal for whiskey at the Philadelphia Centennial Exposition of 1876.

After more than 30 years at the helm of his distillery, McBrayer, at age 67, died. Among the many accolades accorded him was this one from a local newspaper: "Judge McBrayer was endowed with a noble mind, a clear, far-seeing brain and a strong, generous heart. Whether as a judge on the bench, as a legislator in the State Senate, as a merchant, a cattle dealer, or as a distiller, he put forth the best there was in him - it was ever his own and desire to treat everyone fairly and do justice to everybody.”

The story of Lazard Coblentz could not be more different. He was born in 1852 in the sleepy village of Lixheim in the Lorraine region of Northeastern France, near the German border.  When France and Prussia went to war in 1870,  Prussia captured Lixheim and attempted to conscript into its army male residents of eligible age.  As a result, according to a family history, twenty one Coblentz men, a mixture of brothers and cousins, left for the New World, scattering out across North, Central and South America.

Lazard, age 20, headed for California, arriving in the state about 1871.  His early years are shrouded in time but he is recorded in 1880 living in a California mining town known as “Pokerville” (eventually named Plymouth), located in Amador County.  What remains of the town has been preserved as a tourist site. There Coblentz opened a general store, with liquor as a major commodity.  Despite his status as an immigrant, of Jewish ancestry, and speaking accented English, the young man clearly impressed the residents of Pokerville.  The residents elected him town judge.

When a post office building was erected, a rear section was designated as a courtroom.  One observer has written that the chambers were “fitted out with all necessary conveniences for cinching offenders or bleeding litigants, with jury seats, attorneys’ and reporters’ tables, and above all, an imposing pulpit for his Honor,  Judge Coblentz.”

As the mines petered out and Pokerville/Plymouth declined, Coblentz became restless.  In 1888, with his family and brother-in-law Ike Levy in tow, he pulled up stakes and followed his star north to Portland, Oregon, a city that was experiencing an economic surge.  There, under the company name, Coblentz & Levy, the pair opened a wholesale liquor business at 166 Second Street.  

The partners featured their own brands, probably “rectified” blends mixed on their own property.   Appropriately their flagship was “North Star Old Kentucky Bourbon.”   Other brands were “Old Private Stock” and “Black Diamond.”  The quality of their whiskey was brought to a larger audience in 1905 with the opening of the Lewis and Clark Exposition, a major event held in Portland that drew visitors from many parts of the country.  Coblentz prospered until Oregon voted statewide Prohibition in 1914 and then was forced to shut the doors of his liquor house.

The federal census caught up Coblentz in 1920, age 68 and his whiskey business six years gone.  He gave his occupation to the census taker as “macaroni salesman.”  I detect more than a modicum of sarcasm in his response,  appropriate for someone who had ventured in life as far as he had.

One of the true legendary characters of the Old West was Judge Roy Bean, who called himself the “only justice west of the Pecos.” Much has been written about Bean, shown here, and he has been the subject of motion pictures and television programs — most of the depictions fanciful.  What is not exaggerated was his lifelong occupation running saloons, including one in Langtry, Texas.

Bean’s establishment did a brisk business as did other local saloons, giving rise to unrest and lawlessness.  Railroad executives, tiring of frequent robberies, requested the Texas Rangers to bring order to the site and a detachment was sent.  Their commander reported:  “There is the worst lot of toughs, gamblers, robbers and pickpockets collected here I ever saw.”  Compounding the problem was a lack of any court of justice within 200 miles.  The Rangers put out a call for the appointment of a justice of the peace for the region.   Roy Bean applied and was appointed.

As shown above, it was from the front porch of his saloon that Bean dispensed justice.  In the photo here, note that he is sitting on a barrel, wearing a sombrero, under signs that proclaim him “Judge Roy Bean Notary Public - Justice of the Peace - Law West of the Pecos.”  The men on horseback at left are said to comprise a prisoner awaiting trial and his captors.

A replica of the bar area on display at the Whitehead Memorial Museum in Del Rio, Texas, displays a grizzled Bean serving drinks to a cowboy and a miner.  Above his head are books, replicas of the outmoded compendium of Texas laws on which Judge Bean reputedly based his legal decisions. 

As a result of his colorful career, many stories have grown up around Judge Bean.  Some have called him a “hanging judge.”  Others aver that over his career in office he never hanged anyone, arranging for the condemned to escape.  Some dismiss him only as foul-mouth bully, drunk and gambler.  Others counter that he was a generous benefactor, using the fines he levied and even some of the profits of his saloon to buy medicine for the sick and poor of Langtry.  

Roy Bean died in March, 1903.  After a night of heavy drinking he returned to Langtry in the morning and was stricken, passing away that night.  Some say he had lost the will to live, fearing that developments in Texas meant that the Old West of his ascendancy was disappearing and the times were passing him by.  Today Judge Bean lies buried on the grounds of the Whitehead Museum.

NOTE:  More complete posts on each of these whiskey men judges may be found on this blog:  W.H. McBrayer, October 2, 2011; Lazard Coblentz, January 18, 2013; and Roy Bean, October 4, 2016.