From William Looney’s 1846 probate records From John Rice’s 1847 probate records

Early Distilling

Project REACH – Researching Early Arkansas Cultural Heritage

This narrative summary is extracted from a Historic Structure Report by Tommy Jameson A.I.A., Jameson Architects, P.A., Little Rock, Arkansas and Joan L. Gould, Preservation Matters, Fayetteville, Arkansas to be presented to Black River Technical College in three volumes – The Rice-Upshaw House, The William Looney Tavern, and Rice and Looney History. The Historic Structure Report incorporates independent research by: Scott Akridge, Gerry Barker, Maria Barker, Christopher M. Branam, Kathleen H. Cande, Bill Carroll, Joan L. Gould, Dr. G. Dale Greenawald, Dr. Donald R. Holliday, Robert M. Myers, Ronnie A. Nichols, Rick Parker, Dr. Eric Proebsting, Steve Saunders, Dr. Leslie C. Stewart-Abernathy, Ronnie Walker, and Dr. Jan Ziegler.

PREPARED FOR Black River Technical College

Pocahontas & Paragould, Arkansas

PREPARED BYPreservation Matters

Joan L Gould: Historic ResearchRandy L. Tipton: Layout

In association with Jameson Architects, P.A.

Copyrighted 2011

PHOTOGRAPH CREDITSTommy Jameson

Ronnie WalkerLou Wehmer

Randy L. TiptonJoan L. Gould

FOR EDUCATIONAL PURPOSES ONLY – NOT FOR PUBLICATION

Funded in part by grants from Arkansas Natural & Cultural Resources Council

This paper on early distilling was presented by Christopher M. Branam at the Annual Meeting of the Arkansas Historical Association in May, 2008. His paper is taken from an independent study conducted for Project REACH. Mr. Branam is a doctoral candidate in history at the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville.

The Lubricant that Allowed America to Move West: The Role of Distilled Spirits in the Trans-Mississippi Region during the Early Nineteenth Century.

By Christopher M. Branam

Presented at the 2008 Arkansas Historical Association Meeting

Eureka Springs, Arkansas

To quickly explain the somewhat odd title of this paper, it comes from a quote from Bill Samuels Jr., head of Maker’s Mark Bourbon (whose ancestor Robert Samuels was among the fist American settlers in Bourbon County, later to become the state of Kentucky and also an early distiller). Samuels said that “Whiskey was the funnel through which the West leapt; the lubricant and the currency.”

The impetus for this research was my involvement in the historic study related to Black River Technical College’s REACH project, which stands for Researching Early Arkansas Cultural Heritage. Black River Technical College received an Arkansas Natural and Cultural Resources Council Grant to restore and study two early extant structures in Northeast Arkansas which had been donated to the college. One of these structures, The Looney Tavern, is located on the Eleven Point River, near Pocahontas, and was constructed around 1833 according to dendrochronology dating, although through the historic records we know that there was an earlier structure on the premises. The proprietor of the tavern, William Looney, died in 1846. His probate records and

Early Distilling

subsequent sale of personal property included two stills, twenty-seven still tubs, and bee gums (hives) which would have been important to pollinate apple orchards, and 21 and ½ gallons of apple brandy. All but the brandy shows up on the subsequent sale lists. It is interesting to note that the stills are listed almost immediately after what would be considered his most valuable property, his slaves. Looney’s probate records also note bartering in exchange for merchandise, no doubt the brandy would have been useful for this type of economic activity. An interesting side note, one of these stills went to William’s son, Michael Looney, who other records show owned and operated a distillery at Pitman’s Ferry (also known as Hix’s Ferry established in 1803).

Located across the river was another distiller, Reuben Rice. Records show that the Looney and Rice families had moved to the area together and were tied through marriages. No probate records have been found for Reuben Rice. But the 1847 probate records of his son John Rice, who likely inherited most of his father’s possessions, included two stills, twenty tubs, two flake stands, a singling and a doubling keg, mill stones, two empty barrels, and twelve bottles (presumably empty since contents were not listed). A flake stand was the name for a cooling tub which the worm (copper coil) would run through or partially sit in. A barrel would have constituted a cask that held roughly 180 liters.

Distilled spirits affected the trans-Mississippi frontier in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century in very significant ways culturally, economically, and environmentally. In my final paper I will touch on all three of these issues, but due to time constraints of this presentation, I’m going to focus primarily on the economic role of distilled spirits in the trans-Mississippi West. It is worth noting that the cultural, environmental, and economic affects of liquor during this time period are inextricably tied together. First a little background on distilled spirits in the United States and the physical distilling process.

The early European immigrants brought their drinking habits with them. The English colonists drank ale and beer, the Dutch drank beer, and the French and Spanish preferred wine. These were the liquids for everyday use, as it was believed to be unsafe to drink the water in the New World. Unfortunately for the English, their grains did not thrive well during the first years of settlement and it was relatively expensive to ship grains from the Old World. Thus beer was hard to produce locally due of the lack of grains, plus beer does not keep in warmer climates. Unlike the Old World grains, apple trees thrived in the colonies and were planted extensively. By the mid-eighteenth century most prosperous farms had an orchard. The drinking habits of the English colonists quickly changed from beer to cider. Hard cider, which is roughly 10% alcohol, became plentiful and cheap. Everyone drank hard cider (men, women, and children), in all places – funerals, church-raisings, weddings, public meetings, in court, and in the home. Cider was so plentiful, especially in the Northeast, that cider consumption in the eighteenth century meant that more actual alcohol was ingested by colonists from it than from the much more potent rum.

Rum emerged fairly quickly in the English colonies in America. Produced by distilling the

From John Rice’s 1847 probate records

From William Looney’s 1846 probate records

An example of a distillery at the Museum of Appalachia under a protective shed

by-products of sugar processing or molasses, rum was cheaply produced and in the decades just before the American Revolution it was economic boon for colonial distillers. During the Revolutionary War, soldiers were given a ration of rum every day. In 1777, George Washington wrote the President of Congress saying, “since our Imports of Spirit have become so precarious, nay impracticable, on Account of the Enemy’s Fleet which infests our Whole Coast, I would beg leave to suggest the propriety of erecting Public Distilleries in different States. The benefits arising from moderate use of Liquor, have been experienced in All Armies, and are not to be disputed.” After the war, a decline in the consumption of rum occurred because of the decline in molasses supplies and competition from other drinks, namely whiskey. Congress imposed a duty on imported rum and molasses, making domestically produced whiskey relatively cheaper. Colonial taverns were regarded as dens of democratic sentiment and in the new republic, tavern-goers celebrated whiskey as the “all American drink.”

Scotch-Irish immigrants, who had settled mostly in the western regions of the colonies particularly in Pennsylvania and Virginia, introduced improved distilling techniques in the New World by the mid-eighteenth century. The increased popularity of whiskey and brandy greatly affected agricultural economics, particularly after the Revolution. By 1800, the abundant apples from the many orchards across the country were primarily distilled to produce apple brandy, with the exception of the New England area where cider maintained its popularity.

The actual process of distilling changed little over the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. There were advancements in still designs in the early nineteenth century such as making the tubs shallower to increase production with less heat and the introduction of the condensing tub. But the basic process of distilling remained the taking of grains or fruit, making a mash, heating it to help fermentation, and then boiling the mash. Because alcohol boils at a lower temperature than water, the alcohol in the fermented mash boils off before the water; producing an alcoholic vapor which travels up the still’s arm and down through a coiled copper wire called a worm. The worm runs through a barrel or tub (also called a flake stand) containing cool water, sometimes the tub has water flowing threw it. The water cools the alcoholic vapor in the worm, which changes the gas back into a liquid. The liquid drips out of the worm into a container. This process is considered a “run” or “singling.” The liquid product of the first run or “singling” was generally put through the process again for a “doubling” which would roughly double the proof of the liquor. The end result is a concentrated alcohol in the form of whiskey (if corn or rye was used in the mash) or brandy (if a fruit was used in the mash). Now, this isn’t the whiskey that consumed today. I’m sure everyone has heard stories of moonshine or white-lightening. This was a clear and potent liquor. The process of aging the whiskey in charred wooden barrels and filtering it through charcoal came about later.

In Arkansas, there are 236 recorded archeological sites listed as still sites or distillery sites. Pictured, right is part of a still site in Stone County on the White River. Most of the still sites in

Diagram of a still

Stone foundation remains for a distilling operation

Arkansas consist of rusted metal barrel rings, stoneware fragments from a jug, like this one left, and a pile of rocks, usually not intact like this site. The still itself is never present at these sites.

The impact that distilled spirits had on the economy, the environment, and on various cultures within the United States during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries is hard to overstate. In the fist third of the nineteenth century, Americans consumed more distilled spirits (by a large margin) than at any other time in the nations history. One historian estimates that between 1800 and 1830, annual per capita consumption of pure alcohol exceeded 5 gallons – a rate nearly triple that of consumption today.

Liquor, particularly whiskey, was used by hunters and trappers in the trans-Mississippi region in the late eighteenth century and even into the early nineteenth century as a primary trade item. In the previous decades before the creation of the Arkansas Territory, this area was akin to what historian Richard White calls “the middle ground,” a zone characterized by whites and Indians together in a situation where different people borrowed from each other culturally and pursued mutually beneficial economic interests. These alliances created what Daniel Usner has termed the “frontier exchange economy.” This economic system, primarily based on the international fur trade, was economically beneficial (at least in the short-term) to both the whites and the Indians in the Arkansas region. In the 1790s a French trader named Villiers complained that the Quapaws were trading their deer skins to the English for liquor instead of the French. In 1819 Thomas Nuttall traveled through what would soon become the Arkansas Territory. In a three month span from January to March of 1819, Nuttall had five separate entries in his journal that commented on the sale or the excessive use of whiskey in this frontier region, including one discussion of a store on the St. Francis River dated January 4; “We found a store here for the supply of the Indians and the settlers of the neighborhood. The advance upon articles sold to the natives is very exorbitant: for example . . . whiskey, well watered, which is sold almost without restraint, in spite of the law, two dollars per gallon. Yet the Indians get no more than 25 cents for a ham of venison, a goose, or a large turkey. On visiting a neighborhood encampment of the Chicasaws, we found many of them in a state of intoxication.” Henry Schoolcraft’s journal entries telling of his 1819 travels in the Ozarks had similar comments, noting that articles brought up rivers for exchange were chiefly flour, salt, and whiskey, and this trade appeared fairly lucrative to him. In a journal entry dated January 11, 1819, Schoolcraft remarked on seeing a petty trader in a canoe making his way down the North Fork of the White River with animal skins he had obtained from Indians and the remains of a barrel of whiskey he had used to barter for the pelts. The Looney Tavern, like most taverns during the early nineteenth century, was located on a river and close to a roadway. Travelers, including traders moving into the interior of Arkansas would have stopped and bought spirits at such a place.

After the United States acquired the Louisiana Territory in 1803, the growth of the white population coming into the area which would become the Arkansas Territory was remarkable. One

Whiskey jug passed down in the Rice family. The stoneware jug with brown Albany slip glaze is considered to have hand-produced locally.

estimate based on census records, gives the 1811 population of white settlers in pre-Territorial Arkansas as 1,062; in 1820 the population was 14, 273; and by 1830 the white population had swelled to around 30,000. Although the early census data likely discounted some people not located along the major rivers, it is evident that the population grew rather quickly. The “middle ground” began to fade away and the “frontier exchange economy” gave way to an agricultural household economy based partially on subsistence production, but also on a localized barter system. Selling and trading liquor only increased in frequency between 1803 and 1830.

Just as colonists brought their drinking habits to the New World, the settlers in the trans-Mississippi frontier brought their drinking habits with them as well. Distilled spirits were used as a sort of currency in a region in which actual money was in very short supply. Liquor was among the chief staples of the barter economy. An example of this type of barter can be seen in a court case beginning around 1828, Stephen Jones v John Rodney, in the Lawrence County Circuit Court in the Territory of Arkansas. The case revolved around the ownership of a slave girl named Lydia or Lid. According to the official affidavits, sometime between 1804 and 1807 a trade was offered from Stephen Jones to Andrew Ramsey, a slave boy named Joe for Ramsey’s girl Lydia. Ramsey countered that he would make the trade for Joe if a pint of brandy was added to make it a fair trade, and according to the affidavit, the deal was made. In another deposition of that same case, the version of the story changed to Lydia being traded for a Horse and a pint of brandy. In either case, it seems that the brandy was used to make up the difference in perceived value.

Another example of distilled spirits used as currency is found in the court case between Steven Jones, who must have liked suing people, and Daniel Sexton, in 1802 at Cape Girardeau. In this dispute of non-payment for land and accrued debt (much of which was from buying whiskey), the court ordered payment of the debt in part cash, but also in part, in whiskey.

The popularity of whiskey and brandy changed the agricultural landscape and economically enhanced corn, rye, and various fruit crops in the trans-Mississippi West. Distilling allowed for food crops to be used in a way that made transportation to distant markets possible without the risk of spoilage; functionally making a limited market-oriented economy available to rural farmers. This was also the case in the late eighteenth century for the Northeastern states. One historian notes that in much of New England the entire apple crop went into manufacture of cider during the eighteenth century, noting that roads were poor and markets for fresh fruit were lacking, but cider was transported easily and safely. In 1792, during the Whiskey excise crisis brought on by Alexander Hamilton’s tax policies, a petition to Congress was submitted by a politician from Western Pennsylvania, Albert Gallatin, in which he stated that “Distant from permanent market, and separate from the eastern coast by mountains, we have no means of bringing the produce of our lands to sale either in grain or in meal. We are therefore distillers through necessity, not choice.”

Likewise, during the early nineteenth century, transportation was limited in the Arkansas

1828 Lawrence County Circuit Court case Stephen Jones vs. John Rodney indicates that whiskey was often used for bartering or payment of obligations. The highlighted portion, above, is from a photograph of the original document page, shown below.

Territory, just as it had been earlier in other parts of the country. Any agricultural goods produced over what could be used for household consumption or for local barter would be difficult to move to any distant market by overland trail or by river. Distilling made moving agricultural goods at least a possibility. A packhorse could carry only around four bushels of grain, but condensed into two kegs of whiskey, the equivalent of twenty-four bushels could be slung over its back. An estimate from Ohio in the 1820s stated that one bushel of grain was worth about twenty-five cents. This same bushel could be transformed rather easily into two and a half to three gallons of whisky, which was worth about two dollars and fifty cents (roughly a 900% increase, and that isn’t deducting the portion of the grain that would be rotted before making it to market). According to the probate sale lists and merchant ledgers from Northeast Arkansas and Southeast Missouri, the price of whiskey and brandy in this region was substantially higher, roughly $1.50 to $2.00 per gallon and about 13 to 25 cents per shot, at least in rural areas.

Liquor was an accepted part of life in both the private and the public sphere. Most liquor was consumed in the home, where spirits provided mealtime drinks, customary refreshment, and hospitable treats for guests. While some liquor could be made on the premises, most of the time it was bartered from neighbors or from a distiller (the Looney and Rice stills would be an example of type of provider for the local economy). In this a probate bill from merchants Northeast Arkansas, McElroy and Shields dated 1838. John Evans had, in a little over a month, drank almost every day on credit. Advertisements for whiskey from general store merchants were abundant in the Arkansas Gazette by the 1820s. This ad from November 16, 1824, publicized “15 barrels of good old Monongahela whiskey” from Silas.T. Toncray’s store, who also happened to be a prominent Baptist minister in Pulaski County.

In the public sphere, during the early eighteenth century, spirits flowed at such public events as elections and court sessions. Voters demanded and received spirits in exchange for their ballots. Electoral success, explained one Southern politician, depended upon understanding that “the way to men’s hearts, is down their throats.” An editorial in the Arkansas Gazette dated June 10, 1823, complained of the practice of dispensing liquor to influence votes at the polls. “We mean the practice of treating with spirituous liquors, at public places, and on public occasions, previous to, and at, our elections. Surely he is unworthy of the name of an American Freeman, whose vote can be purchased with a bottle of whiskey.” Of course this was nothing new in American politics, the practice of dispensing liquor at the polls goes back to the first elections of the country.

In conclusion, it is evident from the historical evidence that distilled spirits played a significant role in the economic development of the Trans-Mississippi frontier. By distilling excess agricultural products which would not have been easily transported to larger markets, early nineteenth century American settlers in the Arkansas Territory could participate not only in a semi-barter, but also a localized market economy. Historians of eighteenth and early nineteenth century America have

Pack animals were used to transport barrels of whiskey to remote places.

Reproduction of a still

successfully dismissed the idea of self-sufficient households on the frontier. It seems that small communities, often made up of interrelated families who migrated into an area together such as the Looney/Rice families, were much more common and that a barter economy and localized markets were more of a general rule than complete self-sufficiency. By examining the documents and material culture left behind by the Looney and Rice families, we have a wonderful example of early market activity in pre-territorial and territorial Arkansas and the function that distilled spirits played in that market activity. Whiskey and brandy were often the currency used in this cash poor region, allowing early farmers to change some of their produce into a tradable and desired commodity. So the title of this paper, which initially appears as a bit of an exaggeration, in reality, is reasonable upon a closer examination of the economic significance of distilled spirits in the process of American westward expansion.

An 1838 McIlroy and Shield’s tavern bill for John Evans. Source: Randolph County

Probate Records – John Evans

Baptist minister Silas T. Toncray advertized in the Arkansas Gazette on November 16,

1824 that he had a good supply of whiskey available at his store.

James Bellah 1827 Probate Records

The above is extracted from the estate inventory of artisan James Bellah. A non-slaveholder gunsmith, tinsmith, and blacksmith, Bellah died in December of 1827 after residing in Davidson Township for one decade. The December 15, 1827 inventory recorded by nearby neighbor Charles Hatcher and son-in-law John Hudson included an extensive list of tools, household items (including expensive bedsteads and pewter), modest library of books, and large herds of stock as well as the fifty-five gallon still, cap and worm noted here. The still was purchased by Abraham Rickman. One sale item was for brandy which may indicate Bellah distilled brandy; however, it was Daniel Plott of Columbia Township who provided his noted peach brandy for Bellah’s two-day estate sale held on November 19th and 20th of 1830. Bellah’s inventory also listed over forty notes of money owed him by men from the both sides of the boundary-line between Arkansas Territory and what had become the state of Missouri. The outstanding accounts speak to the active trade was taking place in Davidson Township, especially for a gunsmith. The Bellah family arrived in the Eleven Point River Valley in 1817 from Smith County, Tennessee with an inter-connected kinship group including members of the Hudson, Job, Stanley, and Cox families. Source: Lawrence County Loose Probate Records; NorthEast Arkansas Regional Archives, Powhatan, Arkansas