STOCKTON’S
PORT WINE BITTERS
He was the son of Nathaniel Hiram Stockton, born in Tennessee November 6,
1818, and Mary Lynn. N. H. Stockton married Mary on October 17, 1852, in Watsonville, California,
and resided near Santa Cruz,
California, where their six
children were born. Their oldest son, William Walter Stockton, was born in Santa Cruz on June 30,
1857. He then moved with his family to San
Jose in 1862, where N. H. Stockton engaged in
viticulture. W.W. Stockton was to graduate from San
Jose State Normal School, which was established as a teacher’s
college and is known today as San
Jose State University.
By March 1882, W.W. Stockton entered into a partnership with
fellow San Jose
resident, Lewis B. Wilson. Stockton opened a
wine store in San Jose and Wilson
opened a branch store in Grass
Valley.
Stockton’s short lived
partnership with Lewis B. Wilson ended when Wilson
was declared insolvent in Grass
Valley. Wilson
then returned to San Jose
where he immersed himself in education, receiving his certificate to teach
school. He eventually became vice-president of San Jose State College. Wilson married Alice Blythe in San Jose on January 10, 1883. Wilson died in San Jose on 16 May 1924. Meanwhile W. W.
Stockton married Sacramento native, Mary A. Gay
in San Jose on
August 12, 1882.
W.W. Stockton wasted no time in creating a new business
under the name of W.W. Stockton & Co. This was most certainly a business
formed for the purpose of selling wines, etc., from his father’s own extensive
vineyards, and soon included his Port Wine Bitters.
Stockton's Port Wine Bitters bottle.
The original label for Stockton's Port Wine Bitters, included with his trade mark registration for the brand, deposited with the California Secretary of State as trade mark Number 971 on April 9, 1883.
As would be expected in the relatively small town of San Jose, the local newspaper gave notice to a promising new business by a well respected resident. (San Jose Mercury-news, 28 April 1883 )
A newspaper ad for
his bitters, it originally incorporated the word “MALVOISIE” which represented
the initial grape variety used to compound the product. (San Jose Mercury-News, April 17, 1883)
An
interesting news byte noting the original art work for Stockton’s
Malvoise Bitters was being displayed in the window of Rhode’s drug store in San Jose. (San
Jose Mercury-News, April 7, 1883)
By June 1883 the word
MALVOISE was no longer used in his ads. This action, which is not completely
explained, may be because of the varietal grape choices his father had made in
his vineyards, which is where the juice was derived for Stockton’s Port Wine Bitters.
Stockton’s
advertisements for his bitters soon dropped the reference to the Malvoisie
grape probably represented a switch to the use of the more abundant Zinfandel
grape from the much larger vineyards of his father’s Madera properties. (San Jose Mercury-News, June 17, 1883)
The malvoisie grape, or malvasia in Italian, is a European
species of the Vitus vinifera family,
(aka Vitus vinifera “Cinsaut”) It has
been commonly used in the production of port wines for many generations, and
was a freely planted grape in the early orchards of California, especially Napa
and San Jose. As different grape varieties became better tested in the new California geography, it
was noted that the Malvoisie grape was not as hardy as first expected and fell
out of favor by the early 1880’s.
All documentation located indicated a successful business venture that
was to be an excellent financial success to both Stockton
and the city of San Jose.
(San Jose Herald, March 19, 1884)
Much of Stockton’s
success should be put squarely on the shoulders of his father, N. H. Stockton, who was producing huge amounts of grapes.
Nathaniel Stockton’s
Live Oak Vineyard became a model for the newly emerging viticulture that once
rivaled its counterpart in Napa
County. While Stockton was a successful grape grower he looked enviously
toward the area of Fresno
County where the climate
was much more to his liking.
Retaining his successful Live Oak Vineyard, N. H. Stockton
later purchased as much as 640 acres in the warmer San Joaquin Valley
and planted a large portion of it in grapes as well. He had been particularly
critical of the milder, and wetter, climate of the San Jose Valley. Stockton also
established a house and winery at his Madera
property.
A letterhead from
N.H. Stockton, documenting his vineyards in Madera, Fresno County, California, In 1893 Madera
became the county seat of the newly formed Madera
County, reducing the size of Fresno County.
It is clear from this
newspaper advertisement that N.H. Stockton,
and his son, W.W. Stockton, had a close relationship in the spirits and bitters
business. (San Jose Mercury-News, December 18, 1883)
This somewhat close
father / son relationship between W.W. Stockton and his father becomes even
clearer with this IOU, on W.W. Stockton’s letterhead, with both father and
son’s signature.
The successful
business of N. H. Stockton, and the newly emerging business of his son, W.W.
Stockton, and his Port Wine Bitters, all came to an abrupt end when the senior Stockton died at his ranch in Madera on June 30, 1884.
W. W. Stockton, was
the only surviving male sibling, along with his four sisters, when their father
died. W.W. Stockton became the executor of his father’s rather large estate
after N.H. Stockton’s wife, Mary Stockton, gave up her first right as executor.
It took six years to finally complete the probate process which consumed much
of his time. It is apparent that Stockton ceased
producing his Port Wine Bitters and closed the wine and liquor store in San Jose which was
considered part of his father’s estate.
Stockton sold his liquor
business in May 1885, which by that time was only advertising Thistle Dew
Whiskey. From that date he no longer was involved in liquor sales.
Not staying idle, Stockton soon exposed his
inquisitive side. He had a great fascination for the properties of
electro-magnetic energy and spent some time with the development of a telephone.
He was noted as being the co-developer of a new type of highly efficient
telephone transmission. (San Jose Herald,
March 2, 1885) After an extensive interview with Stockton about his new invention, the local
newspaper illuminated predictions about this new modern field. “Mr.
Stockton has given several years of careful study and systematic experiments to
electrical science, studying the best textbooks obtainable and keeping informed
on the progress made in the world through valuable sources as the Electrical
World, Scientific American, Electrical Review and similar papers. “And yet,” he remarked, “although what the
world knows to-day about electricity would fill many books, what the world does
not know to-day about it would fill a vastly greater number; and we are now on
the threshold of a century in which there will be such discoveries and
applications of known principles made as are too wonderful to contemplate. One hundred years or so hence people will
navigate the air by electrical force, will see a friend a hundred or a thousand
miles away. The refrangibility of light,
refractive power of lenses, etc., will be so affected by electro-magnetic
action that telescopes will be made powerful enough to show every pebble in the
planets, and so will other wonderful results, ad infinitum, be obtained through
the agency of this wonderful form of energy, electricity.”
Not overlooking more
traditional innovations, in December 1885 Stockton and G. Phelps patented a
yoke for double team draft animals. (draft yoke or bar for double teams, Patent Number 332,366, filed July 29, 1885) Later
that year he went to Mexico
to superintend the installation of an electric light plant. (San Jose Mercury News, December 17,
1885) By 1887 he was noted as a
“constructing electrician” for the Risdon Iron Works of San Francisco (San Jose Mercury News, August 19, 1887).
He remained in San Francisco
for the next several years where the city directory lists him as an
electrician.
The remaining
stock of Port Wine Bitters was being sold by secondary parties as late as 1890
at THE FAMILY WINE AND LIQUOR STORE, in San
Jose – at a reduced price of 35 cents per bottle, and noted as 11 years old. (San Jose Herald, February 28, 1890) By 1892 it was being sold at $1.00 for 5 bottles.
Stockton briefly moved to Niles, Alameda
County, about 1890, where
the voting register notes his occupation as an accountant. From that date he is
no longer documented in California
but probably stayed there until about 1894.
By 1891 Stockton left Niles and
became somewhat aloof in his whereabouts, even though Mary Stockton, his wife, born
as Mary Albertine Gay, remained in San
Francisco and engaged in a variety of odd jobs to
support herself. She even bore a child, Mary Arlene Stockton on August 22,
1893. It is assumed that her father was W.W. Stockton, even though Arlene’s
death certificate notes her father was “Frank Stockton”. This is likely an
error. By 1895 the San
Francisco city directories simply listed Stockton’s wife as a widow, which was a
common descriptor for a woman who had no husband, for reasons including death, divorce
and abandonment. She had relocated to Chicago, Illinois, by 1900 and eventually moved to Michigan, where she married John Herman Hensen in Grand Rapids, on April
11, 1938, at the age of 74 years. She died in Kalamazoo on January 24, 1946.
W. W. Stockton
clearly determined to make another life changing move and was found next in
Maricopa County, Arizona, in the voting register, when he signed up to vote on
September 29, 1894, in Gila Bend, Arizona. He apparently had decided to stay in
the area for awhile. Local newspapers periodically made note of his prospecting
and mining activities in Arizona
Territory.
William Walker Stockton died on December 24, 1901, at Castle
Creek Hot Springs, Yavapai, Arizona.
The only signed affidavit from the inquest of his death, except for the Coroners
Jury final determination, was from William “Billy” Walker, a well known chef
who went to work at the Castle Creek Hotel about 1899, according to a newspaper
article. (Prescott Arizona Weekly Journal
Miner, October 4, 1899) As an aside, in 1909 Walker, was arrested for an
assault with a deadly weapon – a heavy beer glass, that he threw at Joe Bush in
McDonough’s Saloon in Globe, Arizona. (The
Daily Silver Belt, Globe, Arizona,
July 21, 1909.
The Arizona probate court
determined that although Stockton had an
undivided interest in the Prosperity, Oro Grande, and Rich Rock mining claims
in the Castle Creek Mining District of Yavapai County, Arizona, they were not sufficiently
developed to have any true value, and probate was closed on February 2, 1903.
In cases where deaths were either suspicious or unknown, Arizona law required
that the coroner name a panel of six jurors that would look into, and attempt
to determine, the cause of death. The Billy Walker inquest deposition for Stockton notes he had been drinking heavily,
went to bed and died in his sleep.
The final result as determined by the Coroners’ jury was that Stockton had died from
apoplexy (stroke). To say the least, it was a bit of a shock to note the
signature of Maxfield Parrish as a member of the Coroner’s jury, as noted in
this document.
Names of the Coroner’s jury:
Oren A. Ensign: jury foreman and miner in Castle Creek
District
Charles M. Calhoun: Manager of Hot Springs, beginning in 1898
Maxfield Parrish: Artist – see below.
John Deck: Miner: Killed in a mining accident at Tip Top, Yavapai County, in 1905.
Charles E. Stuart: A pioneer painting contractor of Phoenix.
Thomas M. Kerr: He was a successful freighter operating in Yavapai County.
Maxfield Parrish, and his new bride, Lydia, visited Hot Springs in the winter of 1901-1902. He
had been suffering from the effects of tuberculosis and jumped at the chance to
accept an offer by The Century Magazine to visit the Southwest, and create
pictures for a series of articles. He created a total of 19 paintings while
staying at Castle Creek Hot Springs, considered Arizona’s first springs resort. It was here
that Parrish first employed the intense blue that he experienced in the Western
skies, which became a hallmark of many of his paintings. Little else need be
stated about Parrish, as he is so well known, except this hidden fact about his
Coroner’s jury obligation which has not previously been documented to my
knowledge. The story how he was selected for the jury is a story that will probably never be discovered.

The Maxfield Parrish print, Daybreak, first produced in 1922,
was the most popular, and recognizable print of the twentieth century. The
original painting was sold in 2006, for $7.6 million, to the wife of actor, Mel
Gibson. It was again sold in 2010, at a loss – for $5.2 million.
Eric McGuire