William Seel — Liquor Made His Historic Place

William Seel

This website is replete with pictures of the multi-story buildings constructed or purchased by pre-Prohibition “whiskey men” to house the manifold activities required to wholesale and retail their alcoholic products.  Most such buildings long since have been torn down.  One exception stands out.  Liquor dealer William E. Seel in 1912 razed a single-story home he owned on Market Street in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.  In its place Seel, shown here, erected a four story brick and brownstone structure that has been hailed as “a wonderful example early 20th Century commercial architecture.”  Shown below as it looks today and still bearing Seel’s name, the building is on the National Register of Historic Places.

The building facade facing Market Street displays artful brownstone arches and large windows each with a transom, as shown close up in the photograph at left below.  The brownstone was mined from the nearby Hummelstown Brownstone Quarries, below right.  The quality of the brownstone is well recognized. Seel capped his building with an overhanging cornice supported by corbels and ornamental brackets at the corners.  The remaining three sides of the building are made of red brick.  As the application for historic designation states: “The building has largely maintained its integrity while its neighbors have suffered from the pressures of urban renewal.”

With his partner, John Waller,  Seel occupied the building in 1913. It would be home to “Waller and Seel Wholesale Liquor Dealers” until shut down by the advent of National Prohibition.  The partners found Harrisburg’s Market Street a bustling commercial avenue with ample foot and automobile traffic.  The  business prospered.

Seel’s story began in the small community of Beechwood, Pennsylvania,  where he was born in July 1873 to Catherine and Frank J. Seel.  The public record hold scant information about his education or early occupations but it appears the family moved 210 miles south to Harrisburg sometime during his youth.  Seel first shows up in local business directories in 1893 as a 20-year-old bookkeeper working on Market Street.

When and under what circumstances he met John Waller are not clear.  As early as 1887 Waller, who had been a Union infantryman during the Civil War, was listed in local directories running a liquor store. The first listing of Waller & Seal together in the liquor business was in 1900, located at 319 Market.  As wholesalers they were “rectifying,” i.e. blending, whiskeys on the premises to achieve the desired color, taste and smoothness and selling them under proprietary labels. 

 

Among their brands were "Cabin John", "Conewago", "Drumore", "Kahweam Club Gin", “Mount Vernon,” "Ridgeside", and “Welland.  They featured two flagship brands, “Conestoga Pure Rye,” and “Waller Rye.”  Of these the partners registered only “Waller” with the Patent & Trademark Office.  As an indication that the partners were also selling at retail are flask and quart sized bottles with their labels.

Like other wholesalers, Waller and Seel provided their customers at saloons, hotels and restaurants with advertising giveaway items.  Shown here are two corkscrews, one advertising Conestoga Rye and the other Waller Rye.  The partners also gifted customers with shot glasses.

While growing the company, William also found time for a personal life.  In July 1906, at age 33 he married a local woman, Jennie Marks Fauble,  the daughter of Martin and Zina Fauble.  Quite unusual for the time, Jennie, shown here on a passport photo, was a year older than her husband and apparently previously had not been married.  There is no record of their having children. 

With the coming of National Prohibition, in 1919 Waller and Seel shut the doors of their liquor house and Seel leased the building to a shoe company that occupied the premises until the 1970s.  Newly freed from business cares William, with Jennie, quickly left on an extended vacation to the Caribbean and Latin America.

Seel owned the building until his death in July of 1964. At the age of 90 after falling and fracturing a hip he died of a blood clot in his lungs.  He was preceded in death by Jennie who passed in 1953 at 71.  For unknown reasons they are buried separately.  William is interred in Harrisburg’s Mount Calvary Catholic Cemetery where he shares a gravestone with two sisters.  Jennie lies in Mount Moriah Cemetery in Colonial Park, Pennsylvania.  Their grave sites are shown below.

During ensuing years Seel’s iconic building has known many occupants.  With the whiskey man’s death the building became a home and school for orphan girls.  That use was followed by becoming the Harrisburg quarters of the AFL-CIO.  Subsequently turned into apartments, the building has been leased to Harrisburg University for Science and Technology and provides housing for some fifty students. Still known as the William Seel Building, it is shown below, dwarfed by a sprawling university structure.

Notes:  This post was gathered from several internet sites.  Most importantwere "National Register of Historic Places Nomination Form."  United States Department of the Interior/National Park Service,1980, by Janet Bassett, and ancestry.com.

The Flersheims and a $37,500 Saloon Sign

Because I cannot find a photo of Bruno S. Flersheim, a snippet from his pre-Prohibition saloon sign will do as a surrogate. If alive today the Kansas City liquor dealer would be astounded to know that the picture, one the Flersheims gave away,  in 2019 fetched $37,500 at auction plus buyer’s premium.   Remember that this is not an oil painting, but a color image lithographed on tin.  It is not one of a kind although only a handful may exist today in pristine form.

Look carefully at this saloon sign.  It is not complicated.  A mustached young gentleman is lounging in his lavish study with a small glass in his hand and a bottle of “Seal of Kentucky” bourbon at hand.  His thoughts — let’s call them fancies — have strayed to three stark naked women floating in the air above him.  Each of them has a glass of whiskey at hand and seem to be beckoning to him.  Thus the title of the saloon sign:  “It’s Tempting.”  The message is unambiguous, 

But is it worth $37,500?

We don’t know what Bruno Flersheim would think.  He was born in Norden Germany in May 1848, the son of Samuel and Caroline Frankel Flersheim.  Norden is a town in the district of Aurich, in Lower Saxony, Germany. It is situated on the North Sea, with a small harbor and port, as shown here. Bruno had three younger siblings, a sister, Pauline, and two brothers, Adolph and Oscar.  Adolph and Oscar would follow him to America.

Facts about Bruno’s early life are scant, including his date of entry into the United States and initial employment.   From a passport application it appears he achieved citizenship in January, 1876, in Kansas City.  At that time Bruno would have been 28 years old.  The passport contains a brief physical description. He was very short, only five feet, two inches.  He had a receding hairline, a prominent nose and his oval face sported a dark brown beard. 

Bruno was captured in the 1870 census at 22 years old living in a boardinghouse and working as a traveling salesman for an unnamed liquor dealer, suggesting that he must have been fairly fluent in English.  In Kansas City he met Laura Ellinger, born in Maryland of German immigrant parents.  They married in 1877 and over the nrxt nine years would have four children, three girls and a boy. One daughter died in infancy.

 

Perhaps responding to the financial requirements of parenting, Bruno in 1879 opened his own wholesale liquor store at 412-414 Delaware Avenue, its location for the next 39 years.  Assuming a correct identification, it was the three story building shown here, one with considerable room for expansion as the business grew.  And it did.  In a 1900 Kansas City roster of industrial and mercantile organizations B. S. Flersheim is listed among the prominent liquor houses of the city.  The publication was pointed in noting:  “This trade represents a large amount of invested capital.”

Like many wholesale dealers, Flersheim apparently was busy as a rectifier, that is blending raw whiskeys to achieve a particular color, taste and smoothness.  In addition to Seal of Kentucky, Flersheim’s proprietary brands were “Old Bondage” and “Old Kingdom.”  While giving away shot glasses under those names.he bothered to trademark  only the latter.

According to Kansas City directories,  by 1882 Bruno had been joined in his business by his brother Adolph, listed as a “commercial traveler.”  Adolph learned the business and eventually joined Bruno as a partner.  This proved fortuitous for the future of the company.  In September 1892, Bruno succumbed to a heart condition and died.  He was buried in Kansas City’s Elmwood Cemetery at the memorial and gravestone shown here.

Adolph took over operation of the Flersheim liquor house.  More than that, a year and a half later he married Bruno’s widow, Laura, thus consolidating ownership of the company.  She was three years older than he. The Kansas City newspapers took notice of this private marriage headlining:  “Adolph S. Flersheim and his Brother’s Widow United by Justice Shannon.  It reported that “Immediately after the marriage Mr. and Mrs. Flersheim departed for a bridal trip through the East.”  They would return by May 5.

Adolph made only one small change in the company name.  After 1893, it became B. S. Flersheim Mercantile.  Thus giveaway artifacts after that time can be credited to Adolph, as in the bartender knives shown above and below.  That would include the saloon sign.  By that time the third Flersheim brother, Oscar, had joined the company, working as the bookkeeper.

With Oscar’s help, Adolph successfully guided the liquor house for the next 26 years, taking B.S. Flersheim Mercantile into the 20th Century.  The brothers closed the doors for good in 1918 as National Prohibition loomed and their regional markets were severely constricted.  Adolph retired, living until 1924 when he passed at age 63.  Laura followed three years later at age 74.  All three Flersheims are buried in Elwood Cemetery.  A $37,500 slightly naughty saloon sign remains to remind us of the Flersheim legacy.

Note:  This post was assembled from a host of sources the most important of which was ancestry.com.

The Lancaster Brothers — Diverging in Kentucky

When Kentucky distiller Robert B. Lancaster died in May 1904, his local Lebanon newspaper said:  “He was a strong, substantial, God-fearing citizen, who sought the right course in every affair of life and shaped his action accordingly.”  By contrast, when his distiller brother Samuel P. Lancaster died two years earlier near Bardstown, he was remembered for his often chaotic financial past and his highly controversial will.

Samuel born in 1830 and Robert in 1835 were sons of Anne P. and Benjamin Lancaster, a farmer, working the land in Marion County near Loretto, Kentucky.  Their mother, shown here, was of a distinguished lineage, the daughter of Ignatius Aloysius Spaulding, who was elected to two terms each in the Kentucky House and Senate, served as state railroad commissioner, and was a member of the Kentucky Constitutional Convention of 1890.  

When the boys were stlll youngsters, the family moved near Bardstown in Nelson County.  There Samuel and Robert were educated at St. Joseph’s School, grew to maturity, and worked on the Lancaster family farm.  After their father died in 1840, as the eldest son, Samuel inherited the farm and with the next eldest brother, James, built a distillery on the land.  When that location proved unsatisfactory, in 1881 the brothers moved the plant to a site on the Louisville & Nashville Railroad northwest of Bardstown.

St. Joseph School

Insurance underwriter records compiled in 1892 suggest that the new distillery was of frame construction with a metal or slate roof. The property included a cattle shed and two warehouses.  One was iron-clad and located 150 feet northeast of the still.  The second also was iron-clad located 100 feet east of the still.  Each building had a “free” section not under the requirements of the Bottled in Bond Act.  It was known as S. P. Landcaster & Company, federally designated RD#415, 5th District.

At the outset Samuel and James, neither of whom apparently married, jointly managed the distillery.  They also became known in Nelson County for raising and owning racehorses as well as for the quality of their whiskey.  Meanwhile, younger brother Robert, with no prospects for an inheritance, at age 21 moved to Lebanon, Kentucky, about 25 miles from Bardstown, where he became a clerk in a local dry goods store.  A year later he met Mary Theresa Abell and the couple married in Lebanon’s Catholic Church. Robert soon moved with his bride to a farm in nearby Washington County. 

 

When the Civil War broke out youths of his age were highly sought in Kentucky by both sides as soldiers.  Robert reacted as did others of his Kentucky contemporaries and decamped to Brazil, returning to Mary in June 1864 as the conflict in Kentucky was ebbing. The couple would go on to have six children, three sons and three daughters.

In 1874, with the help of distiller R.N. Wathen, his brother-in-law, Robert had sufficient resources to build a distillery just outside the Lebanon city limits.  They called it the Maple Grove Distillery, designated RD#263, 5th District.  Wathen soon sold his interest to Lancaster.  Insurance underwriter records compiled in 1892 suggest that the distillery property included a single iron-clad warehouse fitted with a metal or slate roof located 120 feet east of the still. A cattle shed sat 40 feet west of the still.

For a time Robert teamed with distiller W. Q. Emison for a partnership at the Maple Grove Distillery. It ended in 1901 when he bought out Emison shortly before the latter’s death.  By that time Robert himself had known the grief of death when in January 1879, Mary Theresa died leaving him with children to raise.  She was buried in St. Augustine Church Cemetery in Lebanon. 

Eighteen months later he remarried.  His bride was Sarah Elizabeth “Sallie" Daugherty, born in Ireland and living in Louisville. They would have one child whom they christened Robert B. Lancaster Junior. The photo below shows the family on the front porch of their home.  Robert is seated with Junior on his lap as Sallie stands by and Lancaster children are scattered around the porch.

At some point Richard became the owner of a Nelson County distillery.  My assumption is that he bought out his brothers but that is not certain.  At its peak the plant was capable of mashing 400 bushels of grain a day.  Bonfort’s Newsletter would call it “one of the best houses in the state.”  That distillery later would be sold to the Whiskey Trust.

Citizens Nat'l Bank

Robert’s distilleries were highly profitable.  Robert produced “Maple Grove” and “Falcon” proprietary brands eventually adding “R.B. Landcaster” whiskey among his labels.  The assets generated by his distilling allowed him to branch out into other enterprises.  In March 1890 he became president of Lebanon’s Citizens’ National Bank and the following year was elected president of the Lebanon Roller Mills Company, a position he held for the next two decades before turning management over to his son Benjamin.  

Subsequently with another son, Joseph, Robert organized the Cleaver Horse Blanket Company, an enterprise called in the local press: “One of the most desirable business ventures of the town.” Robert was a promoter of and later director of the local telephone exchange.  He also served for twelve years as president of the Springfield and New Market Turnpike Company.  As the Lebanon Express newspaper notrd in Robert’s obituary: “Fortune smiled upon him in all his enterprises and soon he became one of the wealthiest and most influential citizens of the town and county.”  

The same good fortune was not smiling on his brothers, Samuel and James.  In addition to running their distillery they were spending considerable time, energy and money on their Nelson County horse farm.  They were breeding, training and racing thoroughbred horses, a chancy economic proposition even for the most professional of horsemen. 

 

By 1879 the Lancaster brothers were in debt $150,000 — equivalent to $4.7 million today.  Unable to pay their debts, they declared bankruptcy and assigned their distillery and 840 acre farm to Steven E. Jones for the benefit of their creditors.  Watching these event unfold from his home in Lebanon, Robert decided to bail out his older brothers.  For $26,000 he bought the properties at public auction. He also took over direct management of the Nelson County distillery, 

Upon receiving the properties, Robert appointed Samuel and James as his agents with full authority to manage and control the properties practically as their own. Despite living only 25 miles away, Robert exercised virtually no supervision.  “…He had placed the properties in the hands of his brothers and required of them no accounting whatever,” according to court documents.

James subsequently died, leaving Samuel managing the properties alone as  Robert’s “agent.”  His creditors were not assuaged.  They claimed the arrangement was a sweetheart deal that attempted to shield Samuel’s estate and sued to take the Nelson County properties to pay off his debts.  The brothers denied allegations of a fraudulent secret agreement. They claimed that the property was Robert's and that Samuel was his hired manager, having no beneficial interest in the distillery other than compensation in return for his labor. The case was decided in favor of the Lancasters in a local court, and on appeal affirmed in the Kentucky Court of Appeals.

After the U.S. Congress passed the National Bankruptcy Act of 1898, Samuel filed for bankruptcy, asking to be freed from his existing debts.  His creditors strenuously objected but in 1899, he was absolved of all debts.  Robert immediately moved to convey the Nelson County properties to Samuel along with all the racing stock and $26,000 on deposit in a bank, apparently profits from Samuel’s business dealings as Robert’s agent.  

The older brother promptly dropped “agent” from his vocabulary and about the same time began widely to express ill feelings toward Robert.  For several years before his death in March 1902 Samuel claimed that his brother, rather than being his benefactor, had robbed him of large sums of money and according to court documents “…Made statements to many witnesses which showed an aversion to his brother and a determination not to leave him anything in his will.”  When Samuel died in 1902 his animus took the form of leaving the ancestral farm and farmhouse, together with all the furniture and the poultry, to Celia Mudd, an African-American woman. For many years she had been Samuel’s live-in housekeeper and cook, who perhaps served other roles. The rest of his estate he left to St. Monica’s Catholic School for colored students in Bardstown. Samuel was buried in Bardstown’s St. Joseph Cemetery.

St. Monica's School

This stunning rebuke from Samuel came at a difficult time in Robert’s life.  In April 1901, after 20 years of marriage, Sallie died.  By the following January at age 66 he had married his third wife, a Lebanon widow named Bettie Edmonds.  Samuel’s will caused Robert to seek its disqualification in Kentucky courts. His lawyers argued that he “…was his brother's benefactor; that he had purchased the assigned estate at great inconvenience to himself by a large outlay of money, actuated alone by fraternal love for his brothers….”  The lawyers for the beneficiaries contended that Samuel’s animus toward Robert had substantial basis in fact.  That argument was accepted by a lower court but overturned in the Kentucky Court of Appeals.  The Lancaster properties were returned to Robert.

Robert had only two more years to live, dying in Lebanon in May 1904 at the age of 68.  Funeral services were conducted at St. Augustine's Church, by the Very Reverend J. A. Hogarty, after which his remains were laid to rest in St. Augustine's Cemetery next to his first wife, Mary Theresa.

Samuel's Monument

Robert's Monument

The Lebanon Enterprise expended considerable ink in writing Robert Lancaster’s obituary.  It included a lengthy editorial eulogy that included the following sentiments: “There are few men who ever lived in this community whose death made a deeper impression upon the citizens than the death of Robt. B. Lancaster….To the poor and deserving needy, he as ever the true friend, and the amount of charity he did, few will ever know for he was a man that made neither show nor parade of his generosity or the assistance he gave others.”  No mention was made of Samuel in the article.

Notes:  Three sources were important to charting the lives of Robert and Samuel Lancaster:   The Biographical Cyclopedia of Kentucky, dated 1896;  the case of Lancaster v. Lancaster, decision of the Court of Appeals of Kentucky, June 17, 1905, and The Lebanon Enterprise obituary May 20 1904.

Looking Into Whiskey Labels Under Glass

During two years as a volunteer curator/cataloguer for the Stabler-Leadbeater Apothecary Museum in Alexandria, Virginia, I was able to see and handle some of the museum’s large collection of “label under glass” apothecary bottles, similar to one shown here. Labels under glass (LuG) were most common from the mid- 1800s to the early 1900s. The bottles feature a label or colorful image covered by a thin layer of glass to prevent damage. Then the glass-covered label was pasted to a bottle created with an appropriate indentation to permit a smooth front. 

An interesting artifact of a bygone era, LuG are found on whiskey and bitters bottles.  A review indicates, with a few exceptions, they fall into two categories, patriotic and pretty women.  One of the exceptions is the “Kit Carson Whiskey” shown below.  It is a back-of-the bar bottle, featuring the American explorer and Indian fighter with his horse.  This bottle was issued by Wood, Pollard & Co. of Boston. Founded in 1881, the company was supplied with whiskey drawn from the warehouses of the Mayfield Distillery in Kentucky. Kit Carson Whiskey was one among more than a dozen Wood, Pollard brands. They included “Very Old Cabinet 1873,” “Oxford Rye,” “Snowdrop Gin” and “White Wheat Whiskey.”

Many whiskey LuGs revolved around the Spanish-American War.  Although just labeled as “Whiskey,” this quart container featured Admiral George Dewey.  On April 27, 1898, Dewey boarded the USS Olympia with orders to attack the Spanish at Manila Bay. He stopped at the mouth of the bay late on the night of April 30, and  gave the order to attack at first light, issuing the historic command "You may fire when you are ready, Gridley." Dewey defeated the Spanish in a battle lasting just six hours, becoming an instant national hero.

A lesser known Spanish-American War figure was Lt. Richmond B. Hobson, shown here on a LuG flask.  Hobson was famous for leading eight volunteers trying to sink a large ship to block the Spanish fleet moored inside the harbor of Santiago, Cuba.  While braving fierce enemy fire, the sailors failed when the ship sank prematurely and all were captured. Released after the war, Hobson later was awarded the Medal of Honor, elected to the Alabama House of Representatives, and upon retirement, raised to the rank of Rear Admiral. This five-inch high bottle was issued by Hanlen Brothers, a liquor house in Harrisburg Pennsylvania.  Given the structure of the bottle, the company is  identified only by a small sticker on Hobson’s picture.

 

Another LuG flask honored veterans of the Spanish American War. The label depicts a soldier and a sailor in the full combat gear of the times.  The motif suggests a friendship between the services that often failed to exist in reality.   The bottle gives no evidence of where or by whom it originated.

National Encampments of the Grand Army of the Republic (GAR), the Union Civil War veterans’ organization, were enormous and important national events.  Any number of souvenirs were generated as the former combatants gathered in large tent cities to relive the glory of the North’s victory.  In 1895 I.W. Harper, a brand distilled by the Bernheim Bros., issued a special LuG flask to mark the encampment held in Louisville, Kentucky, home town of the whiskey makers.

This LuG bottle recently sold at auction for $1,700.  This value on a quart that sold pre-Prohibition for several dollars may reflect not just an interest in  the bottle but what may be the original contents.   My guess is that the whiskey contained  likely was not of superior quality but for 21st Century collectors it seems to make no difference.  Unless somehow contaminated it still may be drinkable.  Moreover, despite an excess of hair, the young woman is pleasant to look at.

Chris Sandheger, originator of this bottle, emigrated from Germany to the United States about 1853 when he was 21 and settled in Cincinnati, Ohio. After serving as an accountant in a liquor store, in 1857 Sandheger established his own liquor business. Under his management the firm grew steadily and his alcoholic brands found a wide local and regional trade. His “Peach and Honey” shown here was a cordial. He gave its bar bottle not only a distinctive LuG, but also wrapped it in wicker.

The glass-fronted label here displays a young woman in an abbreviated costume and high heels who is striking a provocative pose. The flask was issued by C. M. Emrich, a hotel owner in Washington D.C.  In addition to his hotel on Pennsylvania Avenue near the Pennsylvania Railroad station, Emerich also operated a hotel across from the B&O depot on New Jersey Avenue.

Three winsome lasses are here advertising Galaxy Whiskey. They appear on a back of the bar bottle, a finely lithographed image covered in clear glass. This whiskey was the product of the Peter McQuade liquor house of Brooklyn. The company registered the brand name with the government in 1905. McQuade also merchandised another alcohol-laced beverage under the name “Amazon Bitters.”

The final three alcoholic LuG bottles all were generated by a gent named J.C. Tilton who called his nostrum “Tilton’s Dandelion Bitters.”  Ferdinand Weber, guru of bitters, on his Peach Ridge website (Feb. 27, 2015) has done yeoman research on Tilton. He writes: “As it turns out, Joseph C. Tilton, born in Ohio around 1825, was quite a salesman and placed hundreds if not thousands of small advertisements looking for people to make a few dollars and sell things for him. Throughout his career he was listed in a number of professions including, Dealer in Oil Lands (1865-1866), Real Estate Agent (1868-1877), Dealer in Patent Rights and Solicitation (1867-1878) and Making Whacks, (huh?) in 1879 and Carpet Cleaning (1884).”

Ferd also records Tilton selling Indian Balm Pills, Indian Balm Soap, D. Karsner’s Cattarrh Remedy, Tilton’s Lady Detail, Tilton’s Gardner Sticker and other items.  The three bottles below, featuring reverse glass pictures of comely lasses all have bodies wrapped in wicker with a wicker handle. According to Ring & Ham’s book, Tilton’s Dandelion Bitters bottles were made by the Dyotttville Glassworks of Philadelphia.

The 14 glass containers displayed here are just a few examples in which LuG artistry may be found.  My guess is that the $1,700 bottle shown above is only one of many hefty sales to come.

Note: Longer posts on four of the whiskey men referenced here may be found on this website:  Wood, Pollard, April 23, 2013;  Halen Bros., August 9, 2012;  Bernheim Bros, December 10, 2014, and Chris Sandheger, November 6, 2013.