George Barrell Cheever: Deacon Giles' distillery (1844)

The deacon did not care to contradict him, especially as his face just then looked strangely malignant; so he proceeded to draw the deacon into a long conversation, in which the man in blue and velvet seemed an adept in the mystery of distilling, and a friend to the art. The deacon told him all his trouble in regard to the Temperance Reformation. "Not," said he, "that I dislike the thing" itself, in the abstract. I am as firm a temperance man as any one. But really they do adopt such hot-headed fanatical measures, and are carrying the thing to such an extreme, that it is enough to put one out of all patience. It is not strange that even good people should be driven to oppose the reformation in mere self-defence. I am for temperance under the broad banner of the law; and the law protects the business of distilling as much as it does any business; in my view the making of rum is just as honest a calling as the making of gunpowder."

The man in blue acquiesced, and told the deacon he heartily hated these Aidi Societies for the purpose of putting down particular sins, and he said he thought a great deal more injury was done by intempera te writing than by intemperate drinking. Nevertheless he told him that he thought a brewery would be quite as profitable as a distillery, and that the business, moreover, would work in very well, just then, with the public mind, on the score of temperance. He proposed a visit to the deacon's distillery, and told him he thought between them they could contrive a new and convenient disposure of the whole establishment.

Accordingly, with this interesting conversation, they proceeded to the distillery, and after examining the premises, sat down in the deacon's counting-room, in which, it may be remarked, he kept a copy of Bangs on Distillation, but no Bibles. Here again they had a long conversation, after which the man in blue told the deacon that if he would give over to him the care of the distillery for that night, he thought he could make it a good temperance speculation, and arrange matters perfectly to his mind. By this time the man seemed to have acquired a strange power over the deacon, and he agreed to all his propositions without much delay. Si the workman retired to their homes at sundown, and the deacon to his, leaving the keys of the distillery and counting-room in his velvet friend's possession.

That night there was a violent thunder-storm, and the deacon slept but little. Had he known the scenes that were transacting in his distillery, he would not have slept at all. The stageman who drove the mail, passed the distillery, which was situated on the main road, about midnight, and afterwards declared, that through the windows of the * distillery, which he thought burned blue, he could see a crowd of wild and savage-looking creatures hurrying to and fro, and though it was thundering at a fearful rate, he could hear the strangest supernatural voices, amidst all the fury of the storm. This was probably not merely the man's excited imagination; for, after the deacon's departure, as night drew on, the distillery was filled with a troop of demoniacal-looking beings, who seemed ripe even for a midnight murder, and all under the control of the strange man left by the deacon in the counting-room.