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Est. 1857.
Downard (1980) suggests that Henry H Shufeldt & Co. was established in 1857. Their letterheads show that their distillery (RD #9 of the 1st Tax District of IL) was established in 1849, the rectifying house at Kinzie & Cass Sts in 1857.
The company became famous as a target of the Whiskey Trust, which it eventually joined in 1892. It had initially refused to sign up with the Trust, even in the face of knowledge that the organization routinely used violence and sabotage as a way of quashing their opponents. In April of 1888, the company discovered a spy in their midst who reportedly gave them a confession. In September, a valve on a vat was found to have been tampered with such that it would have caused an explosion. In December of the same year, two dynamite bombs were tossed onto the roof of the distillery. One exploded and created a large hole in the roof, but the other failed to detonate and was recovered inside the vat room by investigators.
The Trust denied any involvement in these events, but in February 1891, George J Gibson was arrested and indicted by Federal authorities for attempting to sabotage the Shufeldt plant. Gibson was secretary of the trust. According to reports, Gibson had tried to bribe a gauger (a government official responsible for determining the alcohol content of whiskey and other liquors) with the promise of up to $25,000 of he would plant a bomb under a vat of alcohol. Reports of the time referred to the bomb as "an infernal machine", specially designed to shoot a projectile into the vat and ignite a fire. The gauger was told the fuse on it was set for 3 to 4 hours but an expert testified that it would have exploded in 3 seconds, thereby removing any risk of the Trust being named being involved. Unfortunately, the gauger reported the attempted bribery to his superiors and Gibson was arrested. Ultimately, all charges against Gibson were mysteriously quashed by a judge in Chicago, but he resigned his position at the Trust.
The Chicago distillery was closed and re-established in Peoria in 1904.
Henry H Shufeldt & Co. apparently had offices in Philadelphia and St. Louis.
The company used the brand names:
"Double Stamp", "Hamilton", "Imperial Gin ", "Imperial Gin", "O' Conomowoc", "Oconomowoc", "Royal Arms", and "Royal Arms." | | Business name timeline:
W T Shufeldt & Co. (1860), Henry H Shufeldt & Co. (1870-1917)
Address timeline:
51 S Water (1860), 51-56 S Water (1870-1871), 182-184 Adams (office: 1873-1876), & Larrabee NW cor Hawthorne Ave (1877-1898), & 261-263 Kinzie (1883-1909), 28 E Kinzie (1910-1917) | | Business category timeline (abbreviations decoded below):
D R
Years that company appeared in directories
Years directories were consulted
Chicago directory notes
The images below are thumbnails linked to listing pages containing larger, more detailed images and links to related material.
Click on the thumbnails for more information.
no date | 
1890 |
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Appearance in
directories:
1860, 1870, 1871, 1873, 1874, 1876, 1877, 1878, 1879, 1880, 1881, 1882, 1883, 1884, 1885, 1886, 1887, 1888, 1889, 1890, 1891, 1892, 1893, 1894, 1895, 1896, 1897, 1898, 1899, 1901, 1902, 1903, 1904, 1905, 1906, 1907, 1908, 1909, 1910, 1913, 1914, 1915, 1916, 1917
Directories
consulted:
1860, 1870, 1871, 1872, 1873, 1874, 1875, 1876, 1877, 1878, 1879, 1880, 1881, 1882, 1883, 1884, 1885, 1886, 1887, 1888, 1889, 1890, 1891, 1892, 1893, 1894, 1895, 1896, 1897, 1898, 1899, 1901, 1902, 1903, 1904, 1905, 1906, 1907, 1908, 1909, 1910, 1911, 1913, 1914, 1915, 1916, 1917, 1918
Chicago directory
notes:
V= Wine & Liquor (Wholesale), V-R = Wine & Liquor (Retail), W = Whiskey (Wholesale), L = Liquors (Wholesale) D = Distiller, DA = distiller's agent
1860 - distillers page v difficult to read, 1872 unreadable, 1873 much missing, 1875 partial no DR, 1900 missing, 1903 no Wine & Liquor, 1904 J-S is unreadable, 1909: Major street renumbering with relocation of the E/W divide, 1911: minimal listing, another street renumbering, 1912 is missing, 1914: half distillers missing, 1915 no street addresses for distillers, 1917 no distillers in the business database, but includes the Telephone directory listings, 1918 no distillers and based on telephone directory only. There is some confusion on the dates of the directory - there were 4 sets variously labeled 1916-1919 but there were multiple xing out and inaccuracies. 1917 is a good bet, 1918 could be later. 1918: 5 th Ave becomes Wells
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