“…and Blames Inn Across the Way.”

#34 - “…and Blames Inn Across the Way.”

Our most recent posts have been looking at the daily activities of the various Drums who make up the Drum Family Tree; beginning with the books they owned and the clippings that were saved from the various newspapers they read. In the discovery process of reading these clippings, one newspaper item stood out as of particular interest.

It was the story about the downfall of Drums resident Charles Brighthaupt.

We surmise that it was Jake Santee, Ella Drum’s uncle, who did most of this clipping and saving. His name appears on a number of the items in the collection. It is for that reason that we again surmise Jake saved this item as well. The “item” is what looks like two and a half sheets (possibly three full sheets, originally) out of the May 23, 1913 edition of the Valley Vigilant. We know we can thank Jake for this piece of the collection, because his name is written on it in pencil. You can just make it out in the upper right-hand corner of the page.

The top story in the paper, the one above the fold, is the probable reason Jake kept these pages. It is the story of the capture, in Detroit, of, as described in the article, the “once prosperous merchant and highly respected citizen” of Drums, Charles Brighthaupt.  To say he was a leading citizen is almost an understatement. Among his “titles” in the community were former Postmaster and Trustee of St. John’s Lutheran Church.[1]

It is difficult to make out exactly what happened by reading the Vigilant story, partly due to the way the story is written and partly due to how much of the paper, now over 100 years old, has disintegrated over time. The paper was stored folded into fours. With time and age, the paper became brittle and broke away along those folds as can be seen in the photo, taking with it some of the words of the story. The bottom of the Hat Box in which it was most recently kept, along with the many other clippings and such, all disintegrating in like manner, is covered with the small chips and pieces of newspaper that have broken away from their original places among the clippings above them.

However, enough remains that we are able to piece together the facts that surround this sad story. Apparently, at the time this incident took place, Mr. Brighthaupt was the owner of a dry goods store in Drums. His store was located in a building that sat across the street from the Drums Hotel.

As is true of most agricultural areas of our country, then or now, the wealth of the area’s farmers was locked in the crops being raised; the corn or oats or alfalfa; or in the animals of the farm, the chickens, cows, pigs, and so forth. However, the farmers and their families still had needs. So, they asked the storekeepers for credit, promising to pay in the fall when the crops were harvested or the animals sold. Some farmers paid bills with gallons of milk or dozens of eggs but this did not help a store’s cash flow.

Brighthaupt agreed, giving credit to many of his customers. He suggested that this, his willingness to give credit to so many customers, was where his troubles began. The drummers and companies who sold him goods to stock his store shelves were not interested in eggs or a side of beef. They required money, money that was not always available. So, Mr. Brighthaupt began to seek alternative sources, he called them “loans”, albeit short term in theory, for spendable cash. Using the same idea as used by the farmers, he decided he could “borrow” money from available sources and then pay those sources back when the farmers paid their bills after harvest. One of those sources, unbeknownst to them, was the St. John’s Lutheran Church of which he was a trustee.

To make matters worse, he began to accept invitations from the Drummers to join them in a drink in the Inn across the street. The article does not say this but I am sure that he figured he could get a better price for his orders through this means from the Drummers and the Drummers figured Brighthaupt would buy more after having a few drinks. So, he joined them at the bar in the Inn across the street. The article mentions “Loafers about the store” as joining them in their drinks, and then just going with Brighthaupt for a drink even when the Drummers were not along.  

Things were beginning to spiral out of control. His fellow church-goers were beginning to be suspicious and talk of an investigation began to be heard. The debt load, however, only grew larger, as did the drinking problem. Trying to get out from under this load, he began to forge checks on other people’s accounts going to places away from Drums, Hazleton and Freeland, to lessen the chances of getting caught.

Finally, it all became too much. About to get caught, distraught over his moral downfall and the drinking, Brighthaupt decided he had only one alternative left. He would commit suicide. He wrote out his suicide letter to his wife and went to his basement to perform the deed.

He did not, however, want to die. It came to him, he said, in the darkness of his basement, that there was one other alternative. He could run away to start a new life somewhere else. This he decided to do. He burned the note, and began to plan his escape. He said he made this decision because, at worst, if caught, he’d only go to prison, not lose his life.

He went to the store and removed all the money that was there, approximately $700, and ran away. His nephew and store Manager, Peter Santee, a distant relative of Jacob’s, was distraught the next morning when he found they had been robbed. He searched for Brighthaupt to tell him what had happened, not knowing the thief was Brighthaupt, himself! Brighthaupt’s wife became frantic when her husband turned up missing. She found the ashes of the note in the basement. Just enough of the note was still visible to alert her to his decision to commit suicide. Both Mrs. Brighthaupt and Peter went to the police for help.

Brighthaupt, meanwhile, had gone to Wilkes-Barre to hide. Figuring he needed to run further, he headed next to New York State (Binghamton, then Buffalo) and finally to Michigan where, through letters that he wrote home, he was located. He was found in what the paper refers to as the “slum section” of Detroit and brought home.

“Drink is the cause of it all.” he is quoted as saying in the first sentence of the article. Later in the story he is again quoted as saying, when offered a drink by his captors, “No sir! [words missing] done with the vile stuff. That (is w)hat ruined me. I have sworn to [words missing] never to touch it again. The [words missing] was my undoing. I tried hard to stop drinking when in Drums but I couldn’t.” The reporter says that as Brighthaupt told his story, he would stop occasionally “to dam (sic) the hotel and charge it with being his downfall.” The article actually never names the hotel in question but the headline offers us the clue that it was the Drums Hotel saying in the sub-heading: “He says booze was his downfall and blames inn across the way.”

The “Inn across the way”, the only “inn” in the vicinity, was the Drums Hotel, although I am not certain it was still in the hands of the Drums and/or still known by that name in 1913. According to an article published in the Plain Speaker in 1954[2] announcing the opening of Kermit E. Reisenweaver’s store, the building Reisenweaver’s store was in was the one that once housed Brighthaupt’s store, across from the Drums Hotel. The article says the store building was “constructed in 1840 by George Drum” and identifies this George Drum as the “proprietor of an inn across the street near the crossroads there, when it was a regular stop on the stagecoach line. The village was named after Drum, one of the original settlers”.

If a George Drum DID build the Reisenweaver/Brighthaupt store building in 1840, it could not have been the original George the last sentence of the article refers to. He died in 1831. In fact, it could not have been any George Drum from our family tree. There were only two of “our” George Drums alive in 1840.  Both were George Sr.’s grandsons, George W. Drum (son of George II who also died in 1831) and Abraham’s son, George Drum. George W. was eight-years-old in 1840. Abraham’s son, George, was 12. If a Drum did build the building Mr. Brighthaupt’s store was in, it most likely was Abraham (George’s son or father, depending on how you want to look at the thing).

Abraham helped his father, George, build the original Inn and then expanded that structure by building the “new section”, probably around 1840. It would make sense that, if he had also acquired the property across the street from his hotel, Abraham would build there as well. The building was used by numerous Drums through the 1800’s. The 1954 article says George and Elick Drum each had a store in the building at different times. It also served as the location of Josiah and Stephan’s (J&S) Dry Goods store in the 1870’s.

The “George” mentioned as a store-keeper by the 1954 article is, again, probably Abraham. As for “Elick”, that name does not appear in the materials I’ve seen for this family, although it might be a middle name, or a nick-name, never listed. More likely it refers to Alex Drum, or A.A. as he liked to be called.  Josiah’s son, Abraham Alex (A.A.) Drum^{(Josiah, Abraham, George, Jacob, Philip)} was born in 1854, the same year Abraham’s son, George, was appointed Drums Postmaster. AA became Postmaster in the 1880’s so he could have been running the J&S store before that or while serving the Post Office.  

As for the hotel, there has been some question on how long the Drums Hotel was used as a hotel with some information suggesting it ceased being a hotel in the 1890’s. However, this story about Mr. Brighthaupt seems to confirm the building was still in use as a hotel as late as 1913, being the “Inn” where the drinking took place. It may be that the building left the ownership of the Drums in the 1890’s.

I was able to find only pages 1 and 2 of this Valley Vigilant issue. There is half of a page (left or right half, not top and bottom of a page) that appears to be from this Valley Vigilant issue as well. It could, therefore, be the missing page 3. However, if this is the page 3 in question, it is not the half that included the continuation of this story (page 2 ends with “continued on page 3”).

This half-page does, ironically in my opinion, include what might be seen as a “Close-out Sale” ad for the “Brighthaupt Store”! Talk about kicking a guy while he’s down! The article, perhaps obvious, says Brighthaupt lost his store through all this. “Sensational Sale” reads the top line of the ad, followed by, “NEVER in the history of the valley were Groceries, Provisions, Queensware, Dry Goods, Boots, Shoes - - Oh! a thousand and one articles offered for sale at the prices (this merchandise) in Drums is going at. The bargain of a lifetime awaits you.”

Well, I guess the stuff did have to be sold.

In the end, Brighthaupt pleaded guilty to thirteen separate charges of forgery. He was declared a bankrupt so all of his property was sold and the proceeds were applied to his debts. He had to pay fines totaling $1,300 and was sentenced to serve thirteen to twenty-six years in the Eastern State Penitentiary, sentence to begin in 1913. Talk about the number 13 being unlucky!

Oddly enough, had he lived, Prohibition would have been in force about the same time Mr. Brighthaupt would have been in prison. Prohibition ran from 1920 to 1933. 

In addition to Prohibition, Brighthaupt might also have escaped his drinking problem through one of the temperance movements of his time. Beginning in the 1870’s and running into the 1900’s, often credited with being a major factor in the creation of Prohibition, were the “Moral Suasion” Temperance Movements, in which individuals swore off drinking. 

One of the most famous was the National Christian Temperance Union or Murphy Movement that began in Pittsburgh, PA. If only Charles had crossed paths with one of these movements.

If he did, he apparently did not take, or perhaps keep, the oath. His activities, instead, led him to personal disgrace and what promised to be a long prison term.

However, shortly after he began his sentence at Eastern State Penitentiary, Charles Brighthaupt died. The newspaper says he died from “paralysis” which I’m guessing means a stroke. The website “Find a Grave” says his death occurred on October 14. The newspaper Scranton Truth has the date as October 16.[3] He was 48 years old. 

I am not aware of any drinking issues within the Drum Family Tree. If there were any, they remained a bottled-up, well-kept secret. Perhaps we were just too busy reading!

Join us again on November 12, 2019 to turn more pages of what we read, this time with a focus on the technical stuff, like how to mix concrete or sew a decorative stitch.

Join us next time for #35 - Ditches and Stitches, technically speaking.

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[1] “Long Prison Term for Brighthaupt”, The Scranton Truth, July 8, 1913, p. 2

[2] “Valley to get Dept. Store”, The Plain Speaker, Hazleton, PA, October 7, 1954, p. 15

[3] “Drums Postmaster Dies in the ‘Pen’”, Scranton Truth, Scranton, PA, October 17, 1913, page 2.