By Holly Kozelsky
Spirits were probably being distilled in this area for as long as people have been living here.
Hunter Haskins and Graves Anthony talked about the local history of making spirits in their Sunday Afternoon Lecture program, “Patrick & Henry Distilled: The History of Legal Distilling in Patrick & Henry Counties,” presented on Sept. 21. Both men are members of the MHCHS board; Anthony is its president, and Haskins its secretary.
In the 1800s and before, distilled spirits often were the most dependable drink people had—many families did not have access to safe drinking water. Even children were drinking beer.
Distilling made good business sense, too: It “was a way for farmers to diversify their economic assets, rather than just [depend on] tobacco and cotton,” Haskins said.
Early records come from Patrick Henry, who lived at his 10,000-acre Leatherwood plantation in Henry County from 1779 to 1784. Though there are no records of him distilling here, we can postulate that he did, because historians have found three licenses that Henry had for distilling when he lived at Red Hill. Records show that he made between 2,000 and 3,000 gallons of liquor a year—but he did not appear to have drunk much, if any, of it himself: “He was ‘most abstemious’ to the spiritous drinks that he makes,” Haskins said.
Early Legislation
After the American Revolution, the government needed to raise money, “and what better way to do it than to tax” alcohol, Anthony said. That led to the so-called Whiskey Rebellion, whose name is a bit of a stretch, because “they didn’t revolt as much that year, but they certainly grumbled.”
Similarly, after the Civil War governments need ways to replenish their coffers. Virginia instituted the Whiskey Tax to pay down its war debt.
One of the first consumer protection laws was the Bottled-in-Bond Act of 1897. A sealed bottle indicated that the whiskey in the bottle had not been diluted or replaced with an inferior drink.
Local Production
In Patrick County, Fleming DeHart “signed contracts with an ‘X.’ Despite being illiterate, he was able to amass significant landholdings and grow a lot of crops,” Anthony said. “The most famous among them was his rye. Besides baking bread, he made whisky with it.” It was common for farmers to turn their excess crops—apples, grapes, rye, barley and corn — “into some sort of spirit.”
“At the peak of his operations, he had 100 people living on the Hartville estate, and he ran it like a town,” Anthony said. They transported their spirits over the Fayerdale Railroad, which is now underneath the waters of Philpott Lake.
DeHart’s firstborn son, Isaac “Ike” DeHart, born in 1866, inherited the Hartville estate. He operated I.C. DeHart Distillery where DeHart park is now, in Stuart.
Another son, Joseph “Joe” DeHart, “was the brains behind Mountain Rose Distillery,” Anthony said. The Mountain Rose house in Woolwine is now a bed and breakfast.
Mountain Rose Distillery closed in 1916, and I.C. DeHart closed in 1917.
Making It Illegal in Virginia
The temperance movement of the early 1900s aimed to do away with the sale and purchase of alcoholic beverages.
Important in them movement toward temperance and Prohibition were the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union and the Anti-Saloon League.
By the 1909 state elections, the major issue on the slate was called “local control,” Haskins said. Allowing the sale of alcohol was voted on by locality. Ridgeway voted not to allow liquor. Martinsville, which “was a saloon and brothel town,” voted to allow it.
In 1914 a bill that would allow a referendum to be held on the Prohibition question finally squeezed through the state house despite many previous efforts to pass it in years past.
By 1916 Prohibition, under the Mapp Act, was the law across Virginia. The last drinks were served on Hallowe’en 1916. The surrounding states had outlawed alcohol earlier, and Washington D.C. was in 1918.
Illegal Nationwide
Prohibition came across the nation with the passage of the Volstead Act in 1919, taking effect in 1920.
Nationwide, Prohibition ended in 1933, and the matter went to state choice. On Oct. 25 the state convention ratified the 21st amendment, which ended the era of Prohibition and returned the power to regulate alcohol to the states. More people voted in Virginia’s election over Prohibition than in a presidential election.
ABC Stores
When the 21st Amendment was passed, every state was given the option for state-run or privatized alcohol sales; Virginia was one of about 20 states to choose state-run – the Virginia Alcoholic Beverage Control Authority.
Not everyone celebrated the opening of the first ABC store in Stuart in 1968—the legal sale of booze cut into the business of the bootleggers.
Individual brewing was largely prohibited until a couple of court cases allowed homebrewing, stating in 1978, Haskins said.
Patrick County still bears the marks of its most famous distillers, the DeHart brothers: Mountain Rose Inn in Woolwine, DeHart Park in Stuart and the DeHart Botanical Gardens off Highway 58 by Lovers Lane.
Now there is Smith River Spirits on Eggleston Road. It was founded in 2019 by Wes Mills, Alan Black and Kevin Mills.
