The history of the rum traffic, and of the free use of ardent
spirits without criticism, except where the user was a sot or a drunkard,
in this region once known as the Northwest Territory, dates back to the
first appearance of white men among the aborigines. In the old bills and
inventories and accounts for the Indian trade of a century ago, and in
both French and English control, the article of "Rum" appears as prominently
as pork and gunpowder and knives and tobacco. The Temperance history begins
nearer to modern days. The pioneer farmers and mechanics and tradesmen
seem to have had no thought of the need of temperance societies. But these
came in a few years. The Rev. James Ballard began as early as 1838 to plead
for total abstinence from intoxicating beverages, and the organization of
temperance societies. These had few members at first, but they were
very much in earnest. At that time the idea of compelling abstinence by
legislative enactment had taken root. "Moral suasion" was the favorite
weapon for reform.
In the spring of 1842 was organized a temperance society called the
Washingtonians, in the village, with liberal membership. Lucius Lyon was
its President, George Martin and Charles H. Taylor Vice Presidents, John
W. Peirce Recording Secretary, George M.Mills Corresponding Secretary,
and Benjamin Smith Treasurer. This association was kept up for some years,
and generally at active work in the promotion of temperance; the simple
formula being that of signing the pledge. In June of that year Truman H.
Lyon, the landlord of the Exchange Hotel (Bridge Street House), had banished
liquors from his bar, and kept a temperance house. Myron Hinsdill, in the
National, had done so five years earlier.
In 1847 a Division of the Sons of Temperance was instituted, and had
its lodge room in Irving Hall. It soon became popular, and its growth was
rapid for two or three years. A second Division was formed, and the two
had nearly a hundred members each. They fitted up a room in the Public
Hall building on Canal street for their meetings, which they christened
Sons of Temperance Hall. But internal dissensions occasioned the dissolution
of these associations in 1850. That of the Sons of Temperance was the first
secret society here in that special field of work.
Meanwhile there was the old-time general belief in the advisability
of regulating the liquor traffic by legal restraint, regarding it
as a social vice whose evils could be lessened in that way. Tavern keepers
"of good moral character" were licensed to sell spirituous liquors by town
and village boards. The Trustees of the village of Grand Rapids in December,
1844, adopted an ordinance fixing $25 per annum as the amount of
license for ball alleys and gaming houses, and $20 per annum for selling
liquors to be drank on the premises. This license system prevailed until
1850, when a clause in the State constitution forbade the granting of licenses
to sell intoxicating liquors.
PROHIBITION
The "Maine Law" (prohibitory) was submitted to popular vote in June
1853, and was carried by a large majority. In this city the majority in
its favor was 337; in the county 608. The Act contained the singular provision
that if at the election the majority should vote "yes," it should take
effect December 1, 1853; but if the majority should vote "no," then it
should become a law March 1, 1870. There were many meetings held by its
friends to devise ways and means to enforce the law (at one time
whiskey barrel heads were knocked in and the liquor ran down the gutters
of Monroe street): but on February 1, 1854, it received a quietus by the
failure of the State Supreme Court to hold it valid. It was re-enacted
in its substantial features, and then sustained by the courts. But great
difficulty was experienced in efforts for its enforcement in Grand Rapids.
Its friends had a majority, as the voting had shown, and the leaders among
them were active and zealous; nevertheless it was violated openly and defiantly,
and in a short time it was found almost impossible to sustain prosecutions
and secure convictions.
In 1858-59 there was a renewal of temperance effort here, in the secret
society line. A lodge of Good Templars was organized, which held its sessions
at the Masonic Hall in Commercial Block. The then novel feature of the
initiation of ladies in such organizations, and their eligibility to office
therein equally with members of the other sex, gave it a sudden popularity,
and Piccolomini Lodge, No. 73, I. O. of G. T., flourished finely for a
brief existence. At this period, however, there was not much aggressiveness
in the temperance movement; there was a slow dying out of zeal, and when
the War of the Rebellion came on, the excitement of military ardor turned
all energies in another direction. During the twenty-five years following
the adoption of the Constitution of 1850 there could be no legal licensing
of the liquor traffic; and a stringent prohibitory law on the statute books;
nevertheless, the sale of liquors was practically free or but slightly
embarrassed in Grand Rapids within all that period.
The Good Templar organizations renewed their efforts and energies quickly
after the close of the war of 1861-65. Early in 1866 branch lodges were
established in nearly all the towns of Kent county and about. There were
three lodges in this city in 1867, whose headquarters were at Good Templars'
Hall, then on Canal street. Benjamin A. Harlan was Grand Worthy Chief Templar
for Kent County. J. D. Dilllenback, Warren C. Weatherly, Luman R. Atwater,
George Gray, W. G. Beckwith, Sheldon Leavitt, Mary Berkey, Nellie
Cogshall, Seraph R. Stewart and Lucy E. Pearson were among the officers
of these local institutions. June 11 and 12, 1867, the Grand River Valley
Association of Good Templars held an enthusiastic session in this city
at the Methodist Episcopal church, and adopted a memorial praying
for an express provision in the State Constitution prohibiting the granting
of licenses for the sale of intoxicating beverages. This was addressed
to the convention held that year for the purpose of framing a new
Constitution. February 7, 1868, there was public installation in Good Templars'
Hall of the officers of Valley City Lodge No. 481, I. O. G. T., and George
Gray, Past Worthy Chief Templar, delivered a stirring address in advocacy
of legal prohibition, with stringent provisions for its enforcement. In
the five or six following years, the agitation of this subject on the part
of the workers in the prohibitory movement was constant and zealous.
LATER ORGANIZED MOVEMENTS
To write down all the details of the Temperance and Prohibitory movements
of the latest fifteen years would be but to recapitulate what is within
the memory of most adults of the present day. A few salient points will
suffice for the range that can be allotted in this History. In February
and March, 1873, there was a stirring revival of the temperance element.
Population was increasing, and among twenty-five thousand people cases
of drunkenness and crime were more frequent than when the town contained
but one or two thousand. Beginning February 9,1873, there was a series
of Sunday meetings, in Luce's Hall, at first filling it, but by the end
of March thinning out to very feeble gatherings in point of numbers. It
was resolved to raise a fund of $10,000 to be used in efforts for suppression
of the traffic in liquors. But no fund was raised, and the culmination
of the fervor appeared in the adoption of a memorial praying the Common
Council to "interpose their official powers" to "limit and control, if
not suppress, the sale of intoxicating drinks as a beverage." This was
placed before the Council by a committee of women. The Ways and Means Committee
of the Common Council considered it and made report in substance: That
the granting of license to sell intoxicating drinks was forbidden by the
State Constitution; that the manufacture and sale were prohibited by the
law of 1855; that the law of 1871 provided a remedy for persons damaged
by the sale; that the city charter forbade the granting of license and
only gave to the Council a regulatory power; that in their opinion this
city had less crime and preserved better order than any other of equal
population in the State. Then there was a temporary lull in the temperance
agitation.
Another revival, and what in the familiar language of the time was called
the "Crusade of prayer," occurred in the spring of 1874. Announcement was
made that ladies of the Christian Temperance associations would visit saloons,
pray with the proprietors and exhort them to quit their business. Only
in two or three instance was this programmme carried out. Eleven prominent
clergymen of the city joined in signing a call recommending that the Christian
men and women "devote a day to prayer and consultation in relation to intemperance
and its kindred evils." In response to that a large gathering filled the
Baptist church March 18, day and evening, at which prayers and short addresses
were the chief features of the exercises. Such meetings were frequent during
several weeks. The Prohibition Society held daily afternoon prayer meetings.
The ladies of the Prohibition Society reported April 1 that the druggists
of the city had signed a pledge not to sell intoxicating liquors except
for mechanical or medicinal uses. June 22, 1874, a committee of ladies
from the Prohibition Society visited the Common Council and personally
presented an appeal to that body to enforce the laws in relation to the
liquor traffic, and especially the Sunday laws, and those in regard to
the hours of closing saloons at night.
FROM PROHIBITION TO TAXATION
In the early part of 1875 there were frequent meetings, marked by great
earnestness and some excitement, in behalf of a movement to repeal the
Prohibitory Law of 1855, and enact a stringent tax law in its stead. This
was general throughout the State, and received the countenance of many
who had been ultra Prohibitionists. They reasoned that inasmuch as Prohibition
had failed, a tax law that could be enforced would be a great improvement.
The effort succeeded, and the Liquor Tax Law took effect August 2,1875.
It imposed an annual tax of $40 on retail dealers in beer; from $50 to
$300 on brewers, according to amount of their manufacture; on retail dealers
in spirituous liquors $150, and on wholesalers of spirits $300. There was
some effort on the part of the dealers to modify its stringency by getting
of the Common Council liberal provisions as to closing hours of saloons;
but in this city the tax law went into operation without much friction.
It effected a considerable reduction in the number of saloons, and
brought into the treasury from city saloon keepers $20,254.42 before the
first day of January, 1876, at which time there were 185 saloons in the
city. At the November election in 1876, the State constitution was amended
by a popular vote, striking out the section which prohibited the passage
of any law authorizing the grant of licenses for the sale of intoxicating
liquors. In this city the vote was for striking out, 1,797; against, 377.
In Kent county, 2,640 for; 1,310 against. In the State, 60,639 for, and
52,561 against.
The State Liquor Tax Law has been several times amended, each time in
the direction of making it more stringent. The specific taxes imposed upon
manufacturers and dealers have been largely increased. On some occasions
dealers have tested the law in the courts, but in the main it has withstood
their attacks, and has been reasonably well enforced. In 1877 it provided
that saloons should be closed on election days, and in 1879 it was further
amended to require that they be closed on all holidays. On several occasions
the latter provision has been disregarded in this city, as if by common
consent, in Fourth of July celebrations, but as a rule it has been well
obeyed, though causing probably more disaffection and annoyance among dealers
than any other requirement of the law.
In 1873 the liquor dealers of the city formed a mutual protection association
or league, of which Wm. Hake was President, D. M. Amberg Secretary and C.
Kusterer Treasurer. August 2, 1877, sixteen liquor dealers of the city
met at the Morton House and organized a society under the name of "Protective
Order of Liquor Dealers" President, Wm. Hake; Secretary Sidney A. Hart;
Treasurer, Samuel A. Walling. They announced action and vigilance for the
benefit of their trade, and to ward against aggressive or unfriendly attacks,
from whatever quarter they might come. They counseled obedience to the
law, but deemed it harsh toward the traffic in liquors, and declared a
purpose to labor in all legitimate ways to secure modifications in that
behalf.
About this time, in the early part of 1877, came the Red Ribbon and
the Blue Ribbon temperance reforms, which drew many recruits. And in some
one or more of its phases, ever since, the temperance agitation has been
kept active; especially so in the winter and spring months of nearly every
year. The Good Templars and the Women's Christian Temperance Unions have
been notably zealous. Are present the vitality and energy of prohibitory
efforts seen committed to the hands of the women. Man may rule by physical
strength, by force, by passion, or the sword, but, as Schiller has said:
"Woman commands with milder control
She rules by enchantment the realms of the soul;
As she glances around, in the light of her smile
The war of the passions is hushed for awhile,
And Discord, content from its fury to cease,
Reposes entranced on the pillow of Peace."
On some occasions boycotting of certain parties regarded as unfriendly
to the "temperance, however, ascerbity of feeling has been kept within
the control of reason. In July, 1884, a large number of members of temperance
associations, gathered at a picnic, adopted a resolution to "boycott" certain
firms and traders, for signing the petition of a saloon-keeper for a license.
A little later, the Central Women's Christian Temperance Union rejected
this resolution, and adopted another, which had been passed at the State
convention of the Women's Christian Temperance Unions, to withhold their
patronage from liquor dealers and their bondsmen, and from persons renting
places where intoxicating drinks were sold. The discussions and reformatory
efforts are some what spasmodic, yet they do not die out, and will probably
continue to stir the hearts and exercise the minds of conscientious people
for an indefinite period in the future.
LATER CHANGES
Prior to 1887 the State laws relating to liquor ran in two distinct
lines--two separate statutes, including a number of amendments--one providing
for taxing the liquor traffic and the other providing for its police regulation.
The Legislature of 1887 combined those two in a much more stringent act,
providing for both tax and regulation, with severe penalties for the violation
of the law. Some of its provisions have been contested in the courts, but
in the main this law is well observed in Grand Rapids and its vicinity.
It being upon the statute books, its provisions in detail need not be mentioned
here. Another act affecting this immediate vicinity, passed at the same
session, prohibits the sale of liquors within one mile of the Michigan
Soldiers' Home, also the selling or furnishing of spirituous or malt liquors
to any inmate of the Home, except for medicinal purposes, and except when
such inmate is on furlough and away from the city of Grand Rapids. An amendment
to the constitution, prohibiting the manufacture, gift or sale of spirituous,
malt or vinous liquors, and abrogating the right pf property therein, was
submitted to popular vote at the April election in 1887, on which the vote
of Kent county was: Yes, 6,642; No, 10,997. In the city the vote was 2,181
for, and 7,057 against the amendment. It was defeated in the State by an
adverse majority of 5,645 votes. A local option law passed by the Legislature
of 1887 was pronounced unconstitutional by the State Supreme Court.
THE TRADE IN LIQUORS
Through all the mutations of efforts for its restraint, the liquor traffic
of the city appears to have thriven, and been much of the time as profitable
to dealers, financially considered, as other trades and occupations. In
the earlier days it was carried on in connection largely with other branches
of mercantile business. Legislation has had the effect to make of it a
separate and almost wholly distinct avocation. In the aggregate, for many
years, a large amount of money has been invested in it. Under the present
taxing system it pays large sums into the public treasury. It is vigorously
policed and regulated, so that those engaged in are perhaps more closely
under personal surveillance than are citizens in other occupations. In
1859, under the stress of the stringent prohibitory law of those days,
with a population of less than 8,000, twenty-five saloons were reported
in the city. In 1888, with a population probably eight times as large,
the number was 115. In 1875 the City Directory enumerated twelve houses
dealing in wines and liquors at wholesale. In 1888 the same authority recorded
only seven wholesale houses of that character. A report by the Board of
Trade also gave seven as the number, using capital to the amount of
$150,000, with a product of half a million dollars in 1887, and giving
employment to forty men, including traveling agents.
BEER AND BREWERIES
John Pannell, English by nativity, came to Grand Rapids in 1836. He
was the first brewer here. He erected a small brewing house on the east
side of Kent street, about 250 feet north of Lyon, by the base of Prospect
Hill, and over a brook which came round the north end of that elevation.
There he began making English hop beer. The original brewery, and that
creek, years ago disappeared. At first a barrel or two at a brewing was
as much as Mr. Pannell could find market for, but in the course of eight
or ten years he could brew in much larger quantities and with greater frequency.
In 1847 he was making of it a fairly remunerative business. Then along
came Christoph Kusterer, who had been reared a brewer in Germany, and began
work west of the river, and soon afterward entered into partnership with
Mr. Pannell. About 1849 Mr. Kusterer bought Mr. Pannell's stock in trade
and manufacture, and removed the establishment to the corner of East Bridge
and Ionia streets, were the Kusterer brewing works now stand. To Christoph
Kusterer is accredited the first making of lager beer here; and the German
experts at the business say it was not of a quality which they would boast
of very much at the present day. But it found favor with those who had
a taste for light malt liquors; and some of the older ones have been heard
to wish that they could again sip the original beverage.
Next came along the brothers Gottlieb, Gustav and Christian Christ,
and added another to the lager beer making establishments, and the use
and demand for the article increased rapidly. And just here is coincidence.
Ague and fever--the old-fashioned, bone shaking kind--prevailed here very
largely when those German beer makers came. In 1847 chills and shaking
ague were terrors of malarially afflicted people, and sallow faces and
feeble frames were familiar sights. In the eight years following came two
experiences--a great growth in the habit of drinking lager beer, and the
almost complete dying out of the shaking ague. It is not the province of
the historian to moralize upon these facts, nor to attempt an explanation,
but only to chronicle the coincidence.
Gottlieb Christ went into the Bridge Street House, and his brothers
began work with Mr. Kusterer, but soon purchased property on Ottawa between
Bridge and Hastings streets, where they erected brewery buildings and cellars,
and established a large business. Their buildings were completely wiped
out by the great fire of July 13, 1873, and they were never able to rally
from that disaster sufficiently to restore their business. By that fire
they suffered a loss of nearly $50,000. They began to rebuild, but a complication
of difficulties beset and finally overcame them. Theirs was a leader among
the beer making houses while it stood.
In 1859 there was a brewery, a good brick structure, at the southeast
corner of Fountain and Ransom streets, operated by J. H. Roberts, but it
did not remain there very long. The building a few years later was destroyed
by fire.
Since 1850 the beer brewing business in Grand Rapids has grown to very
great proportions. Twenty-five years later (1875) it had reached an average
annual production of 16,000 barrels in this city; and in 1877 the value
of the aggregate production was estimated at $600,000. With capital investments
aggregating to upward of $400,000, it gives employment to about 160 men,
including those engaged in handling the products. An effort was made some
twelve years ago to establish the making on a large scale of ale and porter,
but the measure of success was not flattering. Twenty years ago there were
four large beer breweries in operation; at the present time their number
has doubled.
The Kusterer Brewing Company's business was established in 1850 by Christoph
Kusterer. he lost his life in the disaster that overtook the steamer Alpena
in October, 1880. Afterward, in May, 1881, the Kusterer Brewing Company
was incorporated. It has had a very steadily successful career. It employs
an average of about thirty men, using a capital of $100,000, and its sales
for 1887 amounted to $97,000. All the popular varieties of lager beer are
manufactured by this company, and they ship largely to outside markets in
addition to their home trade. Officers, 1888--President, Philip Kusterer;
Vice President Adolph Leitelt; Secretary and Treasurer, Charles F. Kusterer.
The company have a substantial brick factory, thoroughly equipped, occupying
100 feet front on Bridge and 140 on Ionia street.
The Michigan Brewery at the corner of West Bridge and Indiana streets,
was founded by Peter Weirich in 1856, and managed by him until his death,
upward of thirty years. It is now managed by the Peter Weirich Brewing
Company (the members being heirs of the estate.) It has extensive cellar
storage, and conducts a trade in bottled beer.
The Union Brewery at 87 South Division street, was established in 1862
by George Brandt--proprietors in 1888, George Brandt & Co., (Elizabeth
B. Brandt, George W. Brandt and Julius R. Peterson). They have an investment
of $35,000; output in 1887, $60,000; giving employment to about a dozen
men. Beer bottling is also carried on by these brewers.
The Eagle Brewery at 50 Stocking street, was established in 1876, by
Jacob Veit and Paul Rathman, its present proprietors. It employs from ten
to twelve men, and uses a capital of $25,000.
Other breweries are those of Tusch Brothers on Grandville avenue; H. A.
Britt, West Division street; John Gessler & Co., Page street, and Adolph
Goetz, Broadway and West Leonard.
RETAIL TRAFFIC IN BEER
The sale of beer and wines and alcoholic liquors at retail is carried
on in upward of a hundred places in this town, popularly called saloons.
Whether or not such modern use of the word saloon may be properly regarded
as an illustration of "the survival of the fittest," is a question which
may not here be discussed. These saloons give support to some five hundred
or more people. A few in the trade, favorably situated to catch or invite
custom, make it very profitable; the great majority only moderately or
not at all remunerative beyond eking out a living. Some dealers in the
old business streets have followed their occupation nearly a quarter of
a century. Among those of long standing are Jerome Trowbridge on Monroe
above Ionia street, Christian Killinger on Crescent Avenue, and Charles
Scheuffler on Canal street. Sales of lager beer by the glass have been
very large for many years at the place of Peter Dressander, next the Arcade
on Lyon street; also at the restaurant corner of Lyon and Kent, now kept
by Henry Huber. At the corner of Ottawa and Bridge street, in a not very
large building, a lively business in beer is done. At a number of these
places kept by Germans, to see the lines of stalwart laboring men, a large
proportion of them carrying dinner pails or baskets, stop and get an appetizer
on the way home to supper, is a study for painter. They say it refreshes
them wonderfully, when tired from a hard day's work. At the place of Julius
Kleinwaechter, opposite the Bridge Street House, such a scene at the close
of working hours is a familiar sight. With neighborly greetings and animated
discussion of all topics--news, work, politics, morals, and region--some
five minutes are spent, while they sip a glass of beer (for the German
seldom pours it down in the Yankee fashion), taking also a small piece
of rye bread and cheese, and then they move on to the home and family. And
thus it is at many other similar houses. Possibly this brief and imperfect
description may serve as a text for some writer of the coming century.
LIQUORS AT WHOLESALE
The retail traffic in wines and liquors has always been carried on chiefly
in connection with that in beer and other lighter beverages. There never
was a distillery of any note in this part of Michigan. Some thirty-five
to forty years ago there were two or three small rectifying establishments
in this town; but that business soon wilted under popular disfavor.
In the village days, and up to the time of the enactment of a prohibitory
liquors by the barrel or in smaller quantities to suit customers; and in
some stores, when whisky was but twenty-five cents a gallon, a cask of
that or other liquor stood on tap at the rear, with a tumbler handy, and
the patron making other purchases was invited to help himself to a drink.
There were two or three small stores where liquor selling at wholesale
was the principal business when the city was chartered and several years
afterward. Under the operation of the Maine law that trade became temporarily
merged with the drug traffic; but in a few years again came on in larger
proportions than had been known before. L. H. Randall, Silas Durham &
Co, William Haker and others were wholesaling extensively, not long after
the close of the war. In 1874 the number of wholesale dealers had increased
to upward of a dozen.
Under the operation of the stringent, high-tax law, which has superseded
the Maine law, the number of wholesale liquor stores has decreased more
than one-half. But the large factor in the mercantile business of the city;
exceeding half a million dollars annually in the commercial value of the
goods that they handle. Among the present wholesalers are D.M.Amberg, Pearl
street; J.H.Colleton, Ellsworth Avenue; Wm. Hake, East Bridge Street; Kortlander
Brothers, Canal; Kortlander & Grady, North Ionia, and A. Kennedy, North
Waterloo. A newly established wholesale liquor house is that of Kortlander
& Murphy in the Livingston block, 174 and 176 Fulton street.
A number of retailers also carry heavy stocks of wines and liquors in bulk.