Friday, September 11, 2015

Sepia Saturday: Corn Whiskey and a Patriotic Duty

Sepia Saturday challenges bloggers to share family history through old photographs.




This week’s Sepia Saturday photo celebrates wine and labels. Wine production in Virginia is as old as Virginia herself, but there are no vintners among my ancestors. However, quite a few were distillers of spirits, both legal and illegal.

James Franklin Jollett  http://jollettetc.blogspot.com
James Franklin Jollett
1836-1930
My 2X great-grandfather James Franklin Jollett was a distiller. How long, I don’t know. How large the operation, I don’t know. What kind of spirits he distilled, I don’t know. But I know he was legal because he paid taxes on what he made.

During the Civil War, distilling of spirits did not suffer the strong sentiment against it as it did later in history and even today. In fact, the Confederate government kept corn whiskey on order. It was sometimes used as part of soldiers’ rations, but more often the whiskey served as medicine in field hospitals. It was poured over wounds to clean them, and it was administered to the injured to ease the shock. Sometimes it was the only anesthetic agent when ether, laudanum, and chloroform were not available for the next amputation. Quinine, morphine, whiskey – it was the best the doctors knew in the days before antiseptics, antibiotics, and awareness of how unsanitary conditions contributed as much to patient death as did illness and injury.

So I like to think that James Franklin and his neighbors in Greene County were doing their patriotic duty, distilling for the cause.

Distillery ad  http://jollettetc.blogspot.com
Ad in the Richmond Examiner
January 1864
Now I’m not so naïve as to think James Franklin distilled ONLY to support the war. The tax records that I found on Ancestry.com are from 1866, a year after the war was over.

The 1866 tax was the result of the Internal Revenue Act passed by Congress in 1862 to support the Government and pay interest on the public debt – in other words, to finance the Civil War. During the war, the states that had seceded from the Union were not taxed, but following the war, Southern states were expected to step up just like their Northern neighbors, even if they had not been officially readmitted to the Union.

Tax assessment August 1866
Tax assessment September 1866

In August 1866, distillers were taxed by the month whereas in September they were taxed by the gallon. I wonder why. Perhaps the August tax was just an estimate due to inability to account for what was produced while part of the Confederacy. In August, then, James Franklin was taxed $15.00 for nine months-worth of distilling at the rate of $2 per whatever the unit was. The following month, a clear account of 13 ¾ gallons at $2 per gallon cost him $27.50. That equates to around $430 today (depending on the online calculator).

Spirits were not the only item subject to taxation. Goods, services, licenses, income and personal property were assessed annually or monthly, depending on the designation. While James Franklin was taxed only on the spirits he produced, his neighbors were taxed on their carriages, watches, pianos, silver plates, and licenses to practice law and medicine. Apparently James Franklin owned none of the “luxury” items signaling wealth.

The Internal Revenue Act of 1862 continued until 1895 when the Supreme Court declared income tax unconstitutional. It took an amendment to the Constitution – the sixteenth – to establish the power to tax income. That was 1913. The “experiment” of 1862 helped establish the format and structure of today’s tax system that we’ve come to know and love so well – wink wink.


For all the best in wine and spirits, visit Sepia Saturday.  Cheers!


© 2015, Wendy Mathias.  All rights reserved.

31 comments:

  1. I didn't know that...that an income tax experiment had been held following the Civil War. Now I'll check the other property tax rolls that I've found. Inheritance taxes I think were among them. Thanks for letting me know about early IRS ...to which we owe so much!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Yes, it was the first attempt to impose an income tax. But since the constitution did not mention a tax, it was found unconstitutional. Thus the amendment.

      Delete
  2. Interesting with the different tax codes between gallon and month. I'm sure it made sense at the time though :)

    betty

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I guess it did and maybe if I looked hard enough, I might find out why the two different formats.

      Delete
  3. I can't imagine having to pay yearly taxes on a watch or on a license! James was evidently smart enough to put his money into non-taxables. $2.00 per gallon on the whiskey was pretty steep.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. To finance the war and pay off debt, they looked for anything and everything they could justify to tax, I guess.

      Delete
  4. Excellent! Your blog shows how all that kind of extra information like tax records can help in adding to what you know about your ancestors. Great to have such a good photograph of James Franklin.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. The photo is a bit fuzzy, but I like his looks. This is one of my favorite photos.

      Delete
  5. Hello Wendy, good on James Franklin for doing his patriotic duty and possibly enjoying a wee dram at the same time. I enjoyed your post immensely.Barbara

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I do hope the family got to enjoy the spirits and that it wasn't all shipped off to the soldiers.

      Delete
  6. James looks like a very kindly soul - life must have agreed with him. Wonderful to have his picture still.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Yes, he does look like a kind man. My grandfather's cousin said that all the grandchildren loved their grandfather (James Franklin), and that he was thrilled when they came to visit. He would tear up when they came and then cry again when they left. How sweet is that!

      Delete
  7. Interesting family history, Wendy. Did James leave any jugs to his descendants?

    Distilled spirits have a long and contentious history as a source of government revenue. Making whiskey allowed western (i.e. Appalachian) farmers to convert surplus grain into a liquid product that was easily preserved and transported in barrels. They were not fond of taxes.The Whiskey Rebellion of 1794 was the first serious challenge to the authority of the US government and President George Washington. The cliche of mountain moonshiners fighting the Revenue Men started with this protest.

    As I understand the IRS history, before1866 the tax on spirits was collected on sales but in September 1866 it was changed to a revenue stamp applied to each barrel. Here's a timeline:
    https://archive.org/stream/irshistoricalfac00unit#page/40/mode/2up

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. No jugs that I know of.
      Yes, I read about the Whiskey Rebellion when I was preparing this. I remembered studying it in school, but it seems to make more sense now. And thanks for the link!

      Delete
  8. Those tax lists are pretty interesting, aren't they? Here in Maine, they also taxed things like watches; in addition, they actually taxed books and bicycles...go figure!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Yes -- anything that looked like a luxury item was going to get a tax attached.

      Delete
  9. I also fine tax forms full of interesting information. Samuel Cleage, who owned my Cleage ancestors back before the war, did some distilling as well. He was in McMinn County, TN

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I wonder how much the tax was on distilled spirits in Tennessee.

      Delete
  10. Thanks. That was both interesting and informative. I haven't a clue what my Australian ancestors drank or what the laws were. I have seen photos of early established breweries and the Swiss immigrants brought their vineyard skills with them.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. That's interesting. I've never heard much about the Swiss being vintners. I don't know any Swiss wine.

      Delete
  11. It is just amazing what can be taxed isn't it? I always thought the sock and the window taxes were outrageous but a "watch" tax??? Did they want people to be late????

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. HA -- you're funny. I'm guessing the watch was simply considered a luxury item. But it does make me wonder how people who couldn't afford a watch got to church or school on time.

      Delete
  12. Fascinating, especially the part about the Civil War. Dreadful to think of it being the only way to numb the pain.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I can't imagine how much whiskey you'd have to drink prior to having your leg amputated. I suppose a LOT of those surgeries were done with people wide awake.

      Delete
  13. What a lot of interesting information in the 'Hooch' tax records. Now we know where the tag 'Tax Revenuers' originated....guess they took a look at the 'Stamp Act' from the Revolutionaries. How wonderful that you have a picture of your 2X great grandfather.
    Sue at CollectInTexas Gal

    ReplyDelete
  14. WoW! 94 years old. What a long and interesting life he must have lived....cheers!
    Love the tax info too!

    ReplyDelete
  15. He made it for medicinal purposes only. I can remember hearing people say that when they were "caught" taking a wee sip. As a child I can remember my folks giving me tiny glasses of elderberry wine for medicinal purposes only.

    I do wonder when it was discovered that using alcohol to sterilize a wound worked.

    ReplyDelete
  16. Interesting to learn about the taxation. It doesn't make me like taxes any better, though. ;-)

    ReplyDelete
  17. What a great picture of him! I understood the difference in moonshiners and distillers was that distillers paid taxes and had a license and moonshiners, well, didn't. Glad yours were respectable in that way. My folks chose the other option.

    ReplyDelete