Today is a good day to remember the life of Colonel Joseph Metcalfe, who was born in Yorkshire England some time in 1813. At just a few months of age his family brought him to America, and they settled after some adventure in Cincinnati, Ohio. Metcalfe's father William was a brewer and he set up and Ale and Porter brewery there in the early 1830s. He then established a depot for his brewery in Louisville Kentucky called the Porter Cellar, which was owned by Mr. Storey. Sales were apparently good in Louisville because he also became partners in a brewery there, a sister company to his Cincinnati firm.
In the 1830s Metcalfe sent his young son Joseph to work in the Louisville brewery. In that town Joseph met and married Sarah Bell, who was an orphan in the care of Mr. Jacob A. Hornung. Their union was consecrated on the 13th of May, 1833 and it eventually produced (at least) four children.
In the 1830s the junior Metcalfe enlisted in the Louisville Legion of the Kentucky Militia where he became acquainted with horses and shooting. He was well admired in the legion and eventually rose to the rank of Lieutenant Colonel. It was an organization with which he would be associated for the rest of his life.
In September of 1831 William Metcalfe sold his brewery to Nuttall & Co., and resumed selling his Cincinnati beer in Louisville through Storey's Cellar. After Joseph finished settling outstanding debts in the Nuttall Brewery he opened a grocery store on Market Street, between 6th and 7th. But by the next summer Joseph had grown tired of the grocery business, and sold out his stock wholesale. Brewery equipment was brought in to the stand and firm was rebranded the Metcalfe & Son's Brewery. William and Joseph ran the brewery on Market Street for the next ten years.
Joseph was a sportsman. His time in the Louisville Legion had ingrained a love of horses and trap shooting. He became a horse breeder and racer. He was a competitive marksman.
In 1842 William retired and Joseph purchased the Louisville Jockey Club race track and its companion building, the Oakland House tavern. Joseph poached brewmaster William Grainger from the New Albany Brewery across the river in Indiana. The partnership was a great success. The brewery advertised heavily and expanded its territory to Memphis, Tennessee. They may have even had a depot in New Orleans.
In 1844 Grainger's former boss, brewery owner John S. Bottomly died and Metcalfe at this time or later purchased the firm. He leased the New Albany brewery out to various brewers before an Indiana prohibition law forced it closed in 1855.
Colonel Metcalfe surely knew, and was possibly inspired by, fellow Louisville brewer and famous Scottish Poet Hew Ainslie. Metcalfe's advertisements were always wordy, but occasionally wandered into the realm of the lyrical. An ad placed in the Louisville Courier from April 23, 1855 is a sarcastic poem dedicated to the (temperate?) editor of a competing newspaper. A later 1855 ad offering his New Albany plant for sale gets to business under the title "Indiana Liquor Law Broke My Brewery".
In addition to temperance forces hobbling his business, bad times were ahead for Joseph Metcalfe personally as well. On November 30th, 1857 his father William died. Then just ten days later his oldest son William passed away at the age of 22. At this point Joseph started easing out of the brewery business and began looking forward to opening a grocery stand once again. He advertised his services as an auctioneer. He brought in his remaining sons, John, Frank, and Henry to run the brewery.
During the summer of 1858 Metcalfe developed a dropsical infection that continued to get worse into the fall. Colonel Joseph Metcalfe died from his infection on September 27th of 1858. He was just 45 years old. His passing at such a young age shocked Louisville, a town in which he was well known and liked. The Courier described Metcalfe with this unusual passage:
"In all relations in life Col. Metcalfe was generous, upright and truthful. He was a man of the most cordial feelings, whose friendship was one to be cherished, for it was of the most loyal, devoted, and self-sacrificing character. To those he loved - and there were hundreds and hundreds in Louisville - his heart gushed out with the tender and unaffected simplicity of a child. But his was a brave and true spirit, and through life he bore himself with characteristic gallantry."
When Metcalfe died the Market Street brewery passed on to an up-and-coming brewer of the next generation, Philip Zang. He brewed at the location for about two years before John Engeln converted the premises into a Malt House.
The New Albany plant was sold to Paul Reising about this same time. Reising then sold to Martin Kaelin and Kaelin sold to Louis Schmidt. In 1883 the brewery was sold to Jacob Hornung and his partner Mr. Adkins. It is unknown to me whether this Hornung is any relation to Sarah Bell's guardian from 50 years earlier. Nonetheless, the brewery her husband founded in 1847 closed for good in 1899, just before the ringing in of the new century.
1889 - 1895
