in 1893 a scandal errupted that centered around a Protestant minister who was accused of a terrible transgression- rushing the growler. Before we tell the story of the minister. We need to explain what a growler is. A Growler has been defined as ” A pitcher or other vessel for beer, 1885, American English, of uncertain origin; apparently an agent noun from growl (v.).. Also in early use in the expression work the growler “go on a spree.” Today, it is probably a sixty-four-ounce bottle, but back in the 1890s it was often a pail that people used to bring beer home in. What is amazing is that children were often given the chore of rushing the growler back then. Williamsburg-born writer Henry Miller recounted being asked to rush the growler for his parents when they had guests. A kid would come to a bar with an empty pail and the bartender would fill it up for him without asking questions.
In Brooklyn of the 1890s there were blue laws that prevented beer from being sold on Sunday, the only day many working people had off. To enjoy a few beers people often stocked up on growlers, which they carried home from the local bar.
Growlers became very popular in Brooklyn in the 1890’s but many other Brooklynites wanted to see them banned. Greenpoint in the 1890s had a large and vigorous anti-saloon league and they also had a very active temperance society, whose goal was eventually achieved in 1919 when Prohibition became the law of the land. A lot of support for the temperance movement came from women in Protestant churches,
The Temperance crowd turned their fury on the growler and it became a symbol of iniquity. It was not only Protestant church goers who saw the growler as evil. Fr. O’Hare, the rector of St. Anthony’s Catholic Church on Manhattan Avenue. Threatened bar owners with being picketed by his congregants if they let children take growlers away from pars and the bars stopped the practice.
One local clergyman who did not see harm in the growler was the Reverend Robert Cochrane of the Church of the Ascension. Rev. Cochrane was a good looking young widower with black hair, brown eyes and an intelligent face according to the Brooklyn Eagle. As a minister he was of irreproachable character and solidly orthodox in his teachings. However, he did believe that a minister had the same right to drink a beer or smoke a cigar as any other man. Cochrane appeared one day at a tobacco shop on Manhattan Avenue where he bought and smoked a cigar, but this did not cause as much outrage as the allegation that the good reverend was “carrying the growler in broad daylight on Manhattan Avenue within a block of his own church” A vestry woman named Felter from his church claimed to have seen the minister with the growler and the gossip spread like wildfire until the rumour made its way into the Eagle. An unidentified source in the article said that some in his parish labeled the minister as a “Carouser’ and that his poor behavior was destroying the church” In an Eagle interview Cochrane claimed that he had “never rushed the growler, nor drank in any public place in this parish. ” He did, however, in anger observe that Greenpoint was, ” The worst place for malicious gossip” he had ever resided in. I wonder what the members of his congregation would make of the many marijuana shops spreading all over Greenpoint?
There was an area of Greenpoint so notorious that it was called “Dangertown.” The Brooklyn Eagle reported that the area was infested with street gangs and toughs whose only thought was how to get money to obtain growlers. These gangs with colorful names such as “The Undertakers,” The Police Killers” and my favorite, “The Dangertown Slobs.” The Eagle reported that on the fifth of May 1887 two Manhattan Avenue teens were arrested for trying to shake down a local merchant for money to buy more growlers. The members of the gang despised work, but the article claimed, “To work for the growler is one of the few things they live for.” As a beer fan I have a soft spot in my heart for the Dangertown growler fans.