“And Peter Schwab is dead.”
So reads the lead story of the Hamilton Evening Journal on September 15, 1913, one simple sentence that expressed the profound sorrow that had spread across the city on the passing of “Uncle Peter,” as he was affectionately called by the press, and presumably, the people. Certainly, in his own advertising.
In addition to a lengthy obituary outlining his career and achievements, the editorial writers that day waxed eloquently about his passing: “The acquaintanceships, the friendships, the associations of Mr. Schwab extended far beyond the family circle, far beyond the circle of usual friendships and that is the reason that Hamilton mourns today as one family because one whom it knew so well, loved because of his generosity and respected because of his fearlessness, has passed from the activities of life into that mysterious realm shrouded in the mystery called death” [sic].
“One would not take him for a politician nor a brewer,” wrote a Cincinnati reporter. “Can you imagine a converted cowboy with an honest face, large feet, long legs, a sandy beard, a black sombrero and an enormous heart! … Peter is all wool and a yard wide.”
In many ways, the resume of Peter Schwab reads like “The Great American Dream Fulfilled.” Born 1838 in Bavaria, Schwab (who pronounced his name “Swope”) came to the Hamilton on a canal boat from New Orleans at the age of 12 and never lost his thick German accent. Here, he became a cooper’s apprentice, learning the craft of making barrels for brewing and distilling. He was, the obituary reads, “shrewd industrious and saving and in 1866 had accumulated sufficient of this world’s goods to embark upon a business career.”
In that year, it goes on, he became engaged in “the commission business,” and by 1874 was able to buy the Sohn Brewery at South Front and Sycamore streets, which eventually covered the entire block of the current police station. He renamed it “The Cincinnati Brewing Company,” and marketed a regionally-popular lager under the brand name “Pure Gold” as “the beer that made Milwaukee jealous” and “the King of Bottled Beers.” He added an ice-making facility in later years, the only part of the enterprise that survived Prohibition.
Schwab is also credited for bringing the electric street cars, known as “traction lines”, to Hamilton and Butler County, taking a personal hand in securing rights to the land. As a member of the Sewer Commission, he was instrumental in developing the city’s sewer system and in bringing paved roads to Hamilton. His philanthropy included a special interest in Mercy Hospital, supplying all the ice to the institution for free and keeping its laboratories outfitted with up-to-date equipment.
But above all, Peter Schwab was known as one of the most politically powerful men in Hamilton and Butler County, and consequently what was then the Third Congressional District where he had to contend with Montgomery County politicos. He was a staunch “old-line” Grover Cleveland democrat, and his only elected office, 12 years on the board of education, was but the iceberg tip of his influence. During his tenure as boss, the democratic party was so prominent in Hamilton that the power struggle was not between republicans and democrats so much as it was between the “Schwabite” faction of democrats and whatever faction was challenging him at the time.
But above all, Peter Schwab was known as one of the most politically powerful men in Hamilton and Butler County, and consequently what was then the Third Congressional District where he had to contend with Montgomery County politicos.
In a 1930 special section looking back on “the Gay Nineties,” the Hamilton Daily News wrote that the era was “the hey-day of Peter Schwab.”
It surmised, “Schwab, if all things told of him are true, was not an Easy Boss. He did things ruthlessly to those who opposed him. He had his enemies within and without his own party.”
Clearly, his power was not absolute, and sometimes his faction fell out of favor, as in the mid-1890s when two members of his school board and others in his party were participants in a dog fight at a Port Union ice house that ended in a brawl with a man shot dead. Chided in the next election as “the dog-fighting faction,” the Schwab clique’s power waned a bit and his struggle to maintain it found him accused of election chicanery for the second time in his career. Accusations against Schwab of ballot-stuffing date back to the 1870s, when Butler County Sheriff Robert W. Andrews saw Schwab open a ballot box and throw in a handful of tickets. The Sheriff testified that Schwab turned around and their eyes met. Startled, Schwab asked, “Did you see that?” The Sheriff, a democrat, replied, “I could not help seeing it, Peter.”
To understand the depth of his influence, it might be interesting to go back to space in the obituary between the apprenticeship and “the commission business” and unpack a little. It seems the local press had forgiven and forgotten a lot by the time of Uncle Peter’s death, because his rise to prominence includes a lot of accusations of thuggery and corruption, and more than one historical source gives Peter Schwab credit for single-handedly creating a whiskey ring that spanned the length of the Miami-Erie Canal in an elaborate scheme to beat the federal liquor tax.
In a June 7, 1870 the Cincinnati Enquirer published an article titled “OUR PETER. The King of the Whisky Ring_How Peter Schwab got Rich, as Related by a Correspondent of the New York Tribune,” which details Schwab’s “whisky and revenue frauds extending over two years and aggregating $3,000,000.” That translates to nearly $60 million in early twenty-first century dollars. This article corroborates many of the accusations later made against Schwab in the 1874 book credited to Thomas McGehean, although the latter is somewhat tainted by the politics of the day.
The article posits that prior to 1863, Schwab was “a poor and industrious mechanic, earning daily wages,” but his political enthusiasm earned him an appointment as constable of Fairfield Township, which included Hamilton. In the days before a professional police department, the constable was charged with maintaining peace and order, and was paid by presenting to the clerk of courts an invoice for every arrest made, whether the case went to trial or not. A normally diligent constable would have earned around five or six hundred dollars a year, McGehean says. During the 1862 term, however, the super-diligent young Schwab earned about $8,000. That seemed a bit excessive to those in charge, and there were allegations that some of the arrests were only on paper, so it became a law that for a constable to collect the fee, there must be a formal bill of indictment issued by a grand jury.
Nevertheless, with that money, Schwab funded a whiskey-buying operation and netted $200,000 by purchasing 100,000 barrels of whiskey just before the government clapped on a tax of $2 a gallon to fund the Civil War. With these proceeds, Schwab purchased an interest in one of Hamilton’s two distilleries. As he would later do with the breweries, he eventually bought out the other stakeholders. He turned his attention to other distilleries up and down the Miami-Erie Canal, purchasing at least a controlling interest in each so that he could install loyal men into critical positions that allowed him to skirt the federal whiskey taxes.
“He worked alone — in the dark,” the Enquirer reported. “It is doubtful if the very men he employed knew each other to be in his employ. There was no one to betray operations.”
A case was pending against him when this article appeared, continuing, “In the choice of his agents, the secrecy of his operations, the depth of his plans, the magnitude of his schemes, the audacity and prudence demanded and displayed, there are qualities developed sometimes wanting in the generals of armies. Of the many marvels of the Whisky Ring, his career has been the most marvelous. It will hardly be expected that the present investigation of his operations will amount to much. Well-paid agents are almost as poor as dead men at telling tales.” A New York Tribune article quipped that Schwab “rose to an understanding of the distilling business, and mastered its details better than the revenue officers.”
Although he was acquitted in the 1870 ballot stuffing case, the whiskey fraud eventually turned around to bite him and Schwab filed bankruptcy in 1872, his distilleries auctioned by the government to pay a judgement against him for unpaid taxes. Still, the next 20 years saw Schwab’s influence grow until it took the legislative power of the Ohio Senate to slow down the Schwab machine by enacting “the Hamilton Ripper Bill” in 1898, despite allegations that Schwab personally took suitcases full of cash to Columbus to stop it. The bill dismantled Hamilton’s city government and gave power to a five-man board, chosen by a judge that favored the faction led by the young upstart Charles E. Mason, but within two years, a new judge was elected and the power shifted enough to put the Schwabites back into power with Uncle Peter again at the helm, albeit behind the scenes and in the news.
However shady his origin story, Schwab remained a powerful businessman and influential politician throughout his life and earned a prominent place in Hamilton society and history. His pallbearers included three Rentchlers, two Fittons and a Schwenn — and a former Ohio Governor, James E. Campbell, a native of Hamilton whom Schwab converted from a Republican.