Whiskey, Temperance and Prohibition in Peacham
The 2016 Historical House Exhibition: Spirited Peacham: Whiskey, Temperance and Bootlegging was drawn from our collection and from loans from friends. The exhibition included a recreation of General Chamberlain’s potato whiskey still, original editions of Pastor David Merrill’s temperance sermon, The Ox (2’5 million copies sold!), plus a fascinating collection of bottles of “underground alcohol” (patent medicines and elixirs).
Click here for a PDF describing the 2016 Exhibition.
2016 Ghost Walk
2016 Ghost Walk featured four characters from the year’s Historical House Exhibition theme of “Spirited Peacham”: General Chamberlain, Farmer Hooker who was converted to temperance, Pastor Merrill’s wife, Mary, and Eloise Miller, who watched the bootlegging cars race through East Peacham.
Click here for a PDF file describing the 2016 Ghost Walk.
PHA Fundraiser 2016: Speakeasy
It was almost a phantom party, as many speakeasies were; the day before, Rusty and Kathleen Barber’s barn was empty, and the day after there was no trace anything unusual had happened there. But on Saturday, September 17, 2016, guests arrived at the barn door, gave the password “Paradise Alley,” and entered a world of lights, music, and “medicinal spirits.” In theme with the year’s summer exhibition and Ghost Walks — Whiskey, Temperance and Prohibition in Peacham — the Speakeasy was the best-attended annual fundraiser the PHA has hosted.
Rusty Barber offered information the great barn itself, its history and the restorations his family has made to it. Susan Chandler spoke about the location, a largely undocumented corner of town. It was originally the Deweysburg Gore, a marginal area between Peacham and Danville with intriguing records on old maps of a “Gypsy Camp,” a “Rouser Town,” as well as the site of shady activities still alive in local memory — including, perhaps, an actual speakeasy! On some current digital navigation maps, there is even a stretch of road called “Paradise Alley.”
