The Director of the Filson Historical Society, Mark Wetherington, gave me an issue of Tennessee Ancestor, Vol. 25, No.3, December 2009. This is a publication of the East Tennessee Historical Society. It has an article titled "1820 Blount County Manufacturers Census" transcribed by Ann K. Blomquist. It is a very interesting census for me because the most common manufacturing business was distilling. There were 48 distilleries, including one owned by a woman, Elizabeth Steward. The next most common business was blacksmith with 24 of them in the county.
Now the nice thing about this census is that they Give the name of the owner, tell the number and size of the stills, the amount of grain used and the amount of of whiskey yielded from a bushel of grain and the total amount of whiskey made in the year. What I have learned from the document is that Tennessee was very much like Kentucky with still sizes running from 30 gallons to 200 gallons in size. Most are copper stills but three of the distillers were using "log" stills. Their yield ran from 2 gallons per bushel to 3 1/2 gallons per bushel. Here is an example of the entries:
Francis Hebderson
One Distillery
1. How many stills?
1 Coper Still
2. What is the size of the still?
63 gallons
3. How much grain consumed?
150 Bus.
4. What is the price per bushel?
33 cents
5. How much whiskey made?
2 gal to bus
6. What is the whiskey worth?
50 cents per Gal.
7. How many hands employed?
1 hand
Cost of Corn $50
Worth of whiskey $300
Another entry on the same page:
David Dearmin
One Log Distillery
1. What is the size of that still?
65 gal.
2. How much corn distilled?
500 bus.
3. What is the price of corn?
33 cents
4. What quantity of whiskey made [per] the bus?
2 gall to the bus.
5. Current selling price?
50 cents
6. Hands employed?
1 hand
Price of corn $165 Doll
Worth of the whiskey $500 Doll
The yields are low, but they seem to be making corn whiskey since the price of the grain is pretty standard for every distillery and the price of the finish product is also pretty much standard. The low yields also makes me think corn whiskey since I have been told that corn malt is not very effective in the conversion to sugar.
It is also interesting that there are no coopers in the county and all of the distillers employ only one hand so I assume that is the owner that is employed.