Made Whiskey - Frank Mathews Aug. 1899

MATHEWS, CLARK, ZION, MOWERY, BOX, JONES, KING, PERKINS, MORESIC

Posted By: Deb (email)
Date: 11/21/2007 at 09:22:32

Mt. Pleasant Weekly News
August 30, 1899

MADE WHISKEY

Where and When the First Distillery was built

Proved A Curse to all Who Hand Anything to do with It – Some other Interesting Reminiscences

[For the News By FRANK MATHEWS]

[continued from last week]

In 1842 Justice Clark, of Vermont, came to Lowell. He had $1,000 in gold which he carried in a belt around his person. There was no markets then for farm products. Corn was selling at ten cents per bushel and other grain was very low. But whiskey was fifty cents per gallon. Clark was an enterprising man and believed if he would start a distillery it would make a market for corn and he would thereby make money and grow up with the country. Many of the citizens urged him to go into it, and as many believed the place would be the metropolis of Iowa. He went into it in on the south side of the river about eighty rods up above the mill where there is a large rock about five feet above the level of the bottom. There came out a clear stream of water about two and a half inches in diameter with an abundance of timber all around it to build with. So he hired workmen, felled timber, hewed and framed it right on the ground. I drove the oxen to haul it together. I was soon built and making the ardent; the capacity about one barrel per day. It made quite a stir in that vicinity. People came for long distances with barrels, jugs, kegs, and bottles. It was believed to be by many a sure cure for snake bite and antidote for chills and fevers and even the Indian agents had to have large quantities of it for the health of the Red man. I well remember of my father hauling two wagon loads of it up to a place called Red Rock on the Des Moines river, not far from where Oskaloosa now stands. There was a trading post at that place. The Indians must have been very unwell to require sixteen barrels of whiskey at one time. But such was the case. But as soon as the local demand was supplied the price began to go down and Clark got some what discouraged. He would not drink a drop of it himself and I think had conscientious scruples about making it. After about three years he had an opportunity to trade his distillery for a farm to Jacob Zion, of Pleasant Grove township, Des Moines county. Mr. Zion conceived the plan of bringing on a lot of hogs and fattening them on the refuse of the distillery. He offered therefore to trade with this object in view. Clark wrote to his father in Vermont for the necessary funds to pay the difference, which was $1,000. His father at once forwarded him the money and was rejoiced to have his son get out of the business. Clark then moved on the farm, did well, and in time became one of the leading men of the state, filling offices of responsibility and trust. He lived at Red Oak about three or four years ago.

Jacob Zion brought about 700 head of hogs to the distillery and commenced operations. About two years after the distillery was built; the spring of water that had supplied the distillery stopped all at once and Clark moved it across the river about eighty yards above the mill on the north side. Some people said that Clark felt the stopping of the spring was an act of divine displeasure, I never heard him say so. Yet the sequel proved that no man did prosper that had anything to do with it. Zion commenced February 1, 1845, and by the first April he had but seventy head of hogs left. This I am sure was the first case of hog cholera in Iowa. At that time no one knew what the disease was, but I have had since then through experience with it to know what was the matter. The hogs were of the hazel splitter variety and from six months to three years old. They had no shelter, but a good sugar camp, which surrounded the distillery at that time. Whiskey went down to sixteen cents per gallon and Zion lost everything. His boys and many others learned the drinking habit. I remember how we boys used to go there and drink. The test glass stood near where it came out and it was as free as water. For a long time the man that made the whiskey gave three gallons of proof whiskey for each bushel of meal furnished him and took the overplus for his pay. Zion’s troubles continued until he was sold out by the sheriff. It brought but $250. A man by the name of Mapes bought it and at the end of two years he was sold out by the sheriff for fifty dollars. Dr. Archibald bought it and sold the worm and irons to the junk shop in Burlington and left the building stand. He said to show the iniquity of the business. It was finally burnt up, supposed to have been set on fire. This was the end of the first distillery in Henry County.

It certainly did no good but it certainly did harm. One man I knew that sold his claim for $700, and did not quit until it was all gone. Some of my associates got a taste of liquor there that was a trouble to them as long as they lived. I liked it so well myself that when I was nineteen years old I found out that if I made a man of myself; it and I would have to part company. And I have never tasted it since. Myself and wife have raised a large and useful family and my name cannot be found on the prescription lists of the druggists but twice, yet I know the doctors have administered it many times.

While Lowell was flourishing, a man by the name of Mowery came there. He was a character. He had a large family of small children and a weakly wife. He set up a boarding house. He was entirely opposed to work; let his wife do that. He was always ready to sit and talk, - was a good talker. Ever ready to run in debt. In those days each family would go to the tannery and buy their leather. Then the shoe maker would come to their houses and make all the shoes and boots for the whole family. A man by the name of Little had bought out Robert Box, and started a tannery at the spring. I went with my father to buy leather there, and while he was waiting on father, Mowery was spoken of. Now Mowery was a very zealous church man, and so was Little. Little had a impediment in his throat, so that when he got a little excited his voice would run up very high and come out with kind of a squeal, and in talking about Mowery, he said, “Don’t you think that doomed old scamp came and got into debt to me $7.00, and me telling him all the time I would not trust him.” It came out with that peculiar squeal that I never forgot. As the board Mowery furnished was not always of the best, some mischievous fellows would mutilate his sign by scratching off the letter “d”, which would make him very hot. He put in a large share of his time showing the new preachers around over the circuit, which took three to four weeks. The roads were so obscure and the fords to treacherous that a stranger was in danger. But Mowery had moved about so much he knew the country well, and when he was with the preacher he was sure of a good living. But the bad boys in each neighborhood would molest and play tricks on him. One time when he came home, his horses’ mane and tail sheared and on his saddle skirts were hieroglyphics, that was not hard to decipher. He could beat any many praying that I ever heard. I have heard saint and sinner, layman and divine, but to my mind he could beat them all. He left Lowell for pastures new, and I have never heard of him since.

About that time there happened a circumstance that I always think of with sorrow. A man lived down on the river, some three miles below Lowell, by the name of Thomas Jones. He made some kind of a trade with Benjamin King, a citizen well known in this county. In the trade he took a piece of land in Danville township, Des Moines County, afterwards improved, and lived on by Lee Perkins, which at that time was considered perfectly worthless, on account of its swampy nature. King undoubtedly misrepresented the land to Jones, and they traded without Jones seeing the land, and the article of agreement was put into the hands of Frankie More, a prominent citizen of Danville for safe keeping. Some time after Jones went and saw the land and thought that he was outrageously cheated. He went to King and tried to get him to make reparation. This he refused to do, but said he would stand by the article of agreement. They then got into a dispute as to the agreement and went to More’s to look at the agreement. Jones got it into his hands and commenced to read it, and when done he threw it into the fire and offered to draw another one more favorable to himself, which King would not agree to, but laid the matter before the grand jury. Jones was indicted and convicted for burning the agreement, and was sentenced to prison for one year. My father and other neighbors believing that he was more sinned against than sinning, got up a petition asking Govenor Chambers to pardon him. This was numerously signed, and Dr. Archibald and my father went with him to present the petition. During the act of granting the pardon he had to kneel down before the governor and ask for pardon. The ceremony was an old one, I suppose, but my father said that he would have gone to the pen rather than to go through it. Jones was a proud, spirited man and he fretted and worried about it so much that he did not live only about a year.

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