Emmitt's Distillery and Mills
IMPROVED.
Emmitt's Big Distillery and Manufactory of High Wines
BY THE GENTLY FLOWING CANAL
A Business of Very Considerable Proportions.
A COPPER TOWER ADDED FOR THE MANUFACTURE OF FINISHED GOODS.
More than 2500 Barrels of Liquors Now Lying in the Ware House
A FINE NEW PROCESS FLOURING MILL ATTACHED.
Goods as Good as Anybody's Distributed to all Parts of the Country.
THE MAN OF 83 YEAR LOOKING AFTER E BUSINESS IN DETAILS.
A Tour of Observation By the Courier.
A few days since the Courier, piloted by Mr. Emmitt, made a tour of observation through the Latter's Big Distillery and Flouring Mills.
It is not the intention of this article to describe the process of the machinery used in conversion of grains into the various spirits manufactured at these big works in Waverly. The rather, we shall confine ourselves to a general description of a business that has steadily augmented itself until is has few equals in this section of Southern Ohio. Besides there would be little sense in attempting something that every school boy in Waverly knows more of that we ourselves. If we may be allowed to digress a little, we desire to call attention to the fact the venerable James Emmitt, now eighty three years of age, still looks after the details of his immense business and commercial interest, with the diligence of forty years ago. His black mare, a faithful old animal of intelligence almost, conveys her owner from one point of business to another, as tenderly and safely as it could be done by human being. Day in and day out, she may be seen standing patiently in front of the office, waiting the appearance and order of him who for more than four score years has weathered successfully all the vicissitudes of this buffeting old world and yet is unwilling to say that it is enough.
In November 1890, Mr. Emmitt will be 84 years of age. Concerning his business interests in detail we can do nothing better than to quote from his "Reminiscences."
He conducts a private banking establishment, and owns and operates a large distillery at Waverly; a large flouring mill; the largest and most complete dry goods, clothing, grocery and "department house" at Waverly - - an establishment at which you can secure almost anything you want, in all grades of merchandise; his sand stone quarries are among the finest in the state; he owns and operates a stone saw mill, a lumber mill, a furniture factory, furniture store, a harness making establishment, a lumber yard, carries on a large coal trade, and aside from doing a general merchandising business, he buys wheat, corn, wool, bark, locust timber and almost everything produced in his locality for which there is a market, and is still the owner of several canal boats. Besides his many other commercial enterprises, Mr. Emmitt is paying a great deal of attention to bringing to public notice his "Emmitt's Discovery," a medicinal agent, the remarkable virtues of which have won for it more than a local fame. The importance of the "Discovery" demands that it be given additional attention further along. Mr. Emmitt feeds on an average of from four hundred to five hundred head of cattle, and maintains the largest herd of circassian goats in Ohio. He has now over one hundred head of these really beautiful and eminently useful animals, and he finds them very profitable. He keeps them to clean up his land, and he has found them most valuable and faithful aids, in this direction. Mr. Emmitt says that his goats will clear up one hundred acres of rough, briar-grown hill land in two years. They eat everything -- briars, blackberry bushes, weeds, sassafras, paw-paws and underbrush of every sort. Nothing escapes them, nothing is too tough or unpalatable for them. Mr. Emmitt maintains that every goat he owns is worth at least ten dollars a head to him. Fifteen years ago, he bought a Ciccassian buck and ewe from a man in Jackson County, and his present herd is the natural product of his original investment. These goats are beauties, and are exceedingly playful. Their antics in the field jumping over stumps, rocks, stone heaps and briar clumps are very funny. Mr. Emmitt never kills one of these goats, but when he loses one by accident he has the pelt removed and tanned. These pelts when treated as Mr. Emmitt treats them, make the most beautiful rugs imaginable. The hair is long curly and as fine as silk, and when tanned is a beautiful golden brown in color.
Mr. Emmitt is, by long odds, the most extensive farmer and land owner in Pike County, his holdings amounting to something over seven thousand acres. Of this one thousand acres is of the finest farming land, and he has about one thousand acres in pasture. The balance of his land is in timber. He owns an immense amount of real estate in Waverly, among which is valuable hotel property, which he has recently remodeled, adding twelve excellent rooms to the "Emmitt House," and fitting up the entire establishment with modern improvements. He pays one third of the entire taxes of the town, and something like ten percent of all taxes levied in Pike County.
Mr. Emmitt is conceded to be the best farmer in the county, and riding alone any of the pikes leading from Waverly, one can tell almost every piece of land owned by him, by its admirable cleanliness, by the way in which everything is kept up, and be the general air of thriftiness stamped upon it. He keeps a small army of men at work, in and about Waverly in his many business establishments, and on his roads and farms. He is the life and strength, the back bone of that whole community. He still has men in his employ who have been on his pay rolls for thirty or forty years.
In addition to the real estate owned by Mr. Emmitt in Waverly and Pike County, he owns a great deal of property in Chillicothe and its vicinity. He owns a magnificent farm, of one thousand eight hundred and seventeen acres in Boone County, Missouri, every acre of which is tillable, and he is the owner of a fine one thousand two hundred acres in Woodson County, Kansas near Toronto. His Pickway farm that consisted of 713 acres, known as the old "Caldwell Farm," has been sold. He also owns a quarter section of land in Indiana which he bought in 1806, and which he has never seen, although he has been paying taxes on it ever since.
Mr. and Mrs. Emmitt have a beautiful home at Waverly -- a splendidly planned home, large conveniently arranged, and handsome within and without. This home is crowded with beautiful and costly pictures, statuary, mosaics and brica-brac, all bought from Europe. Among the pictures are many canvasses of exquisite beauty, masterpieces, for which Mr. Emmitt paid large sums of money. He has a fine collection of beautiful pictures on brass and porcelain --gems that he prizes beyond price, splendid and elaborate mosaics -- among them a large table, showing the greater number of the most famous structures and ruins of Rome -- a large and unique glass-frame mirror from Venice, and many beautiful conceptions in marble and alabaster. This home is a veritable treasure house. The plot of ground surrounding the house occupies a full half square, all of is in lawn, and beautified by fifteen or more splendid pieces of statuary, life-size, which Mr. Emmitt himself bought at the ateliers, near the famous Carrara quarries in Italy. It is a home without a counter-part in this part of Ohio, and one in which any person with an appreciation for things artistic will find unalloyed delight.
But we started out to speak more particularly of the Distillery. The improvements recently made to this manufactory have put it in the line of the best manufactories of it class. The people of Pike County are all familiar with the old Distillery and its process of converting in the liquors the grains fed into it capacious maw.
With the improvements however they are not so familiar.
Mr. Emmitt, at a cost of several thousand dollars perhaps, has erected a Copper Tower for the purpose of the manufacture of finished goods, which, he says, will compete with any in the market. It is an immense tank standing some forty feet in height, into which the crude liquors are forced for distillation purposes.
This improvement has been made that the institution may be abreast of the times. Discovery and invention, as we all know, make it necessary for progressive manufactures to keep a sharp lookout so that they may not fall behind as competitors. To such a science is the evolution of spirits reduced in these modern times, that a book could scarcely do the matter justice. Those of our readers who are curious to know just how whiskey is made, may be thoroughly enlightened by a visit to the big distillery of Waverly.
The Flouring Mills of Mr. Emmitt adjoin the Distillery and are not the least, by any means, of Waverly's industries. The New Process of Flour Making is the one employed and as six brands of flour are put upon the market. In this branch of business too, Mr. Emmitt is abreast of the times. Flour that will make as fine bread as every family sat down to is turned out daily and at prices that defy competition.
In accompany cut represents the Distillery, The Flouring Mills, The Stone Saw Mill, The canal and Locks and the Railroad near by.
The Waverly Courier, Wavelry, Ohio
February 20 1890
Copyright © 2007
Pike Co. Genealogy & Historical Society
P. O. Box 224, Waverly, Ohio 45690